Digital Chain of Custody using Blockchain

Project Overview

In the contemporary digital era, the significance of data cannot be overstated. Data permeates every aspect of people's lives, from everyday activities to critical criminal investigations. As data volumes continue to expand exponentially, effective data management becomes increasingly challenging, particularly when handling digital evidence in the context of cyber-crime investigations. This project delves into the intricacies of managing data integrity and ensuring secure distribution of digital evidence by leveraging blockchain technology.

Project Requirements

1. Node
2. Ganache : https://trufflesuite.com/ganache/
3. Truffle
4. IPFS (To easily access the uploaded files)
5. Docker (To host a private IPFS)

Project Setup

Deploy Smart Contract

Navigate to directory /smartcontract

Change the port number to the port number of the Ganache Suite, which can found in the truffle-config.js file under development.

Run truffle migrate command

truffle migrate --reset --compile-all 

The migrate command will deploy the smart contracts to the ganache suite and will display the address of both smart contracts in the terminal.

Important Note

To run ganache network in terminal run command:

truffle console --network ganache

Create a .env file and paste in the variables from .env.local file located in directory /frontend/.env.local

Copy & paste the addresses of the smart contract to the respected environment variable in the .env file. Additionally, add a salt value which is needed for encryption.

  VITE_USER_AUTH = 
  VITE_MANAGEMENT = 
  VITE_SALT =

Host Private IPFS

Open a terminal and navigate to the directory /ipfs, where docker-compose.yml file is located. To start the services defined in the Docker Compose file, run the following command:

docker-compose up

If you want to run the services in the background (detached mode), you can use the -d option:

docker-compose up -d

Project Installation

Open terminal on directory /frontend and enter to install necessary packages.

npm install

To Compile and Hot-Reload for Development

npm run dev

Compile and Minify for Production

npm run build

Run Unit Tests with Vitest

npm run test:unit

Lint with ESLint

npm run lint