A blockchain-based Trust System for the Internet of Things

Abstract

One of the biggest challenges for the Internet of Things (IoT) is to bridge the currently fragmented trust domains. The traditional PKI model relies on a common root of trust and does not fit well with the heterogeneous IoT ecosystem where constrained devices belong to independent administrative domains. In this work we describe a distributed trust model for the IoT that leverages the existing trust domains and bridges them to create end-to-end trust between IoT devices without relying on any common root of trust. Furthermore we define a new cryptographic primitive, denoted as obligation chain designed as a credit-based Blockchain with a built-in reputation mechanism. Its innovative design enables a wide range of use cases and business models that are simply not possible with current Blockchain-based solutions while not experiencing traditional blockchain delays. We provide a security analysis for both the obligation chain and the overall architecture and provide experimental tests that show its viability and quality.