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Summer School Information Security Lab1

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11 views4 pages

Summer School Information Security Lab1

Uploaded by

imeemkh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
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Lab 1 – Build a Blockchain in Python

Sumer School 2024 Information Security, School of Engineering, University of Glasgow


Student Name:

Student Number:

Sumer School 2024 Lab Assessment


Each individual lab will be evaluated using the below criteria:

• Design a blockchain system in Python– 50%


This means each student will need to demonstrate a functional blockchain system
for each task in the lab manual to the GTA and member of staff to get the full mark.
• Lab Questions – 10%
• Reflection and significance – 25%
After the completion of programming and testing each of the “Tasks”, you will be
required to reflect, in a few lines, on your understanding of the tasks and its
significance. This is a chance for you to ask yourselves “What you did?”, “What it
means?”, and “What next?”, meaning what is the significance of the undertaken
task in the context of blockchain and what you are learning in the lecture. Try to be
innovative and think outside the box. Please, do not provide a summary of what
you did as it will not be accepted.
• Adherence to coding good practice – 15%
o Meaningful variable and function names – please avoid names like “x”, “y”,
or personal names
o Using annotate comments to explain what your code does at the beginning
and to clarify what each important line of code does.
o Consistent indentation – Indentation helps in making the code readable and
to avoid error.
_____________________________________________________________
1. Lab 1 Objective
The objective of this lab is to design and test blockchain technology and understand its
components in detail. A Proof of Work (PoW) consensus is used in this blockchain. In
Summer School 2024 - Information Security Lab 1: Build a Blockchain in Python
2

this lab, we will focus more on the implementation part.

2. Software Requirements
Software:
• Python
• Visual Studio Code

3. Task 1: Python Tutorial


Install Python and Visual Studio Code
Access to the webpage https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/ to get more information about
Python coding.
Task1.1: Create an empty list and use a for loop to generate 10 blocks and append these
blocks into the list. For each blockchain, the datatype is dict, there are index and data in
equal steps start from 100 until it reaches 1000. Data need convert to list data type.

Task1.2: Define a function to achieve the block record in task3.1, and write another
function to print the block according to the input index.

Task1.3: Put both functions into a class. Write a main program which creates an instance
of the class and can print desired block.

Task1.4: Comment your code, not just with inline comments (beginning ‘#’), but write a
docstring comment (one which is enclosed in triple quotes) for the function, detailing what
arguments the function takes and what it returns.

4. Task 2: Build The Environment


Launch the command portal and create a new document with a virtual environment.
After setting up the environment, open the IDE create a new file for coding, and name it
blockchain.py.
In the blockchain.py file, first import the following packages as they are required in building
our blockchain:
time (or datetime), json, hashlib
Use the time or datetime library to attach a timestamp to each block that is created or
mined. The hahshlib will be used to hash a block, JSON will be used to encode the block
before we hash it.

5. Task 3: Build The Blockchain Architecture


Summer School 2024 - Information Security Lab 1: Build a Blockchain in Python
3

To start building the PoW blockchain, please create a Blockchain class. The __init__
method will consist of a variable called chain to store a list of all the blocks in the
blockchain.
The structure of generated blockchain is as below
{
index: 0, #Genesis Block
timestep: current time,
data: "Hello World!",
proof: 0,
previous_hash: '0'
} -> hash() -> 3s2351h

{
index: 1,
timestep: current time,
data: "Transaction A",
proof: 24912,
previous_hash: 3s2351h
} -> hash() -> 8fv743413

{
index: 2,
timestep: current time,
data: "Transaction B",
proof: 235724,
previous_hash: 8fv743413
} -> hash() -> 41j566d098

Task3.1: Write a block generate function to create the Genesis block on instantiation of
the class.
• Index: An index key will store the blockchain’s length. It is represented by the chain
variable in the __init__ method. Please use this variable to access each block in

Summer School 2024 - Information Security Lab 1: Build a Blockchain in Python


4

the chain.
• Timestamp: The timestamp key will take a value of the current Date and Time the
block was created or mined.
• Date: The recorded information.
• Proof: This key will receive a proof value that will be passed to the function when
called. Note that this variable refers to the proof of work.
• Previous hash: Lastly, the previous hash key takes a value of previous_hash from
the function which is equivalent to the hash of the previous block.

Task3.2: Write a function that can input information into the block and record in
blockchain.

Task3.3: Access previous block by using a simple function. Please create a method that
gets the previous block in the chain.

6. Task 4: Reflection
After the completion of programming and testing please reflect, in a few lines, on your
understanding of the tasks and its significance. This is a chance for you to ask yourselves
“What you did?”, “What it means?”, and “What next?”, meaning what is the significance of
the undertaken task in the context of blockchain system and what you are learning in the
lecture. Try to be innovative and think outside the box. Please, do not provide a summary
of what you did as it will not be accepted. [Answer in the below space]

7. Lab Score
Marking Criteria Student’s Score
Demonstration (50%)
Lab Questions (10%)
Reflection (25%)
Adherence to coding good
practice (15%)

Summer School 2024 - Information Security Lab 1: Build a Blockchain in Python

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