Zijian Bao, Wenbo Shi, Debiao He, Kim‐Kwang Raymond Choo
There has been increasing interest in the potential of blockchain in enhancing the security of devices and systems, such as Internet of Things (IoT). In this paper, we present a blockchain-based IoT security architecture, IoTchain. The three-tier architecture comprises an authentication layer, a blockchain layer and an application layer, and is designed to achieve identity authentication, access control, privacy protection, lightweight feature, regional node fault tolerance, denial-of-service resilience, and storage integrity. We also evaluate the performance of IoTchain to demonstrate its utility in an IoT deployment.
Jun 1, 2018·2018 5th IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Cloud Computing (CSCloud)/2018 4th IEEE International Conference on Edge Computing and Scalable Cloud (EdgeCom)
Information Centric Networking (ICN) achieves high efficient via in-networking cache and direct object retrieval, i.e., content can be replicated and cached at any network nodes. However, the content is out of owner's control after published. With access control issues becoming more prominent, we propose combining the blockchain with traditional access control schemes in this paper. As all we know, blockchain has become one of the most popular technologies in recent years. This technology has been applied to various cryptographic currency, such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and so on. Due to its decentralized and untempered paradigm, using blockchain in access control is an ideal scheme. We utilize xor-based encoding/decoding scheme to realize fast encryption and decryption, which would save content provider plenty of time. Especially, when the content provider is off-line, our scheme could realize that authorized users also can obtain decryption information related contents. The security analysis proves that our access control framework is pretty safe.
Blockchains have become an integral part of many distributed applications, providing a new platform for interaction between system components. Blockchains are perhaps most known for their use in crypto-currency systems, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, where pseudo-anonymous parties engage in transactions without a trusted third party. Blockchain systems often struggle to meet performance demands of real-word applications, rendering them inappropriate for performance sensitive applications.\nThere is also concerns regarding the immense amount of electrical energy required to securely run existing public blockchain systems. Bitcoin alone consumes more than small countries. Private systems have higher throughput and avoid excessive energy consumption, but have closed membership and do not scale to the same extent.\n\nBoth public and private blockchains rely on some form of membership mechanism providing peers with a view of other participants. Existing systems often employ partial view protocols due to their natural scalability. However, recent work have shown that full view protocols are feasible in practice, and can scale to thousands of participants. With full membership, applications can send messages directly to their destination without any intermediate hops.\n\nThis thesis presents FireChain, which combines a Byzantine fault-tolerant gossip service and full membership, with a proposal for blockchain systems that does not consume excessive energy. We evaluate FireChain's performance through experiments on PlanetLab, and show that it scales beyond hundreds of members.
Jun 1, 2018·2018 IEEE International Conference on Environment and Electrical Engineering and 2018 IEEE Industrial and Commercial Power Systems Europe (EEEIC / I&CPS Europe)
Maria Luisa Di Silvestre, Pierluigi Gallo, Mariano Giuseppe Ippolito, Eleonora Riva Sanseverino · 6 authors
The recent advances in distributed energy systems require new models for exchanging energy among prosumers in microgrids. The blockchain technology promises to solve the digital issues related to distributed systems without a trusted authority and to allow quick and secure energy transactions, which are verified and cryptographically protected. Transactions are approved and subsequently recorded on all the machines participating in the blockchain. This work demonstrates how users, which are nodes of the energy and digital networks, exchange energy supported by a customized blockchain based on Tendermint. We focus on the procedures for generating blocks and defining data structures for storing energy transactions.
Hyunjae Lee, MyungJae Shin, Kyeong Seon Kim, Yeongeun Kang · 5 authors
This paper presents a new approach for avoiding double-spending attacks via the concept of recipient-oriented concepts in private blockchain networks. Together with the concepts of stealth address and masternode at recipient sides, transactional privacy is assured and transaction recipients become active which receive transaction propagation unilaterally. Based on this approach, it can be shown that recipient-oriented method is suggested for preventing the double-spending attacks in this paper. In addition, the proposed method is possible to prevent double spending attacks using the verification time of the recipient and blocking time of the transaction.
Mobile devices generate massive amounts of data that is used to get an insight into the user behavior by enterprise systems. Data privacy is a concern in such systems as users have little control over the data that is generated by them. Blockchain systems offer ways to ensure privacy and security of the user data with the implementation of an access control mechanism. In this demonstration, we present ChainMOB, a mobility analytics application that is built on top of blockchain and addresses the fundamental privacy and security concerns in enterprise systems. Further, the extent of data sharing along with the intended audience is also controlled by the user. Another exciting feature is that user is part of the business model and is incentivized for sharing the personal mobility data. The system also supports queries that can be used in a variety of application domains.
As a distributed database mapping the domain name and IP address, DNS makes it easier to access the Internet However, DNS relies on the resolution of the root server, which is a hierarchical network topology centered on the root. It is vulnerable to single points of failure and domain name resolution data tampered, affects the normal service of Internet domain name resolution seriously. To solve this problem, we proposed a new blockchain-based decentralization DNS data storage method by studying the principle and characteristics of blockchain. And implement a decentralization system DecDNS to establish multiple parallel DNS nodes, store the key information of the zone file resolution data. In the experiment, we proactively invalidated multiple nodes in the parallel resolution node and tampered the domain name resolution data. The experimental results show that, the DecDNS can provide normal resolution services, solve the problem of single point failure and the falsification of domain name resolution data. While compatible with the original domain name system, it is also enhances the stability and security of DNS framework, so it is an effective and feasible solution.
Juah C Song, Mevlüt Demir, John J. Prevost, Paul Rad
The use of Blockchain in the Internet of Things (IoT) promises to provide an avenue of decentralized, fault-resistant management and data immutability. The wide range of research on blockchain, focused on how to improve upon its drawbacks of latency and resource consumption, demonstrates that the blockchain design has flexibility. Almost every aspect of blockchain can be tailored to fit the requirements of a desired application. However, the wide range of options in configuring blockchains presents challenges in the adoption of blockchains to secure IoT. In this paper, we present the opportunities and challenges of implementing blockchains and present a use case of integrating blockchain into an IoT framework for securing sensor data acquisition.
Dongpo Zhang, Zhenyuan Zhang, Luan Chen, S. Li · 6 authors
Internet of Energy, a combination of power grid and Internet, contains many energy forms. Different form of energy is distributed in Internet of energy, which means that it is closely related to distributed technology. Different forms of energy needs to interconvert, so it is necessary to make power trading in this distributed system, the current power trading model is not adaptive to distributed power trading, so a new distributed trading model is important to Internet of energy. Blockchain technology with distribution and decentralization features is widely used in electronic currency transactions, Hyperledger-Fabric is the one of typical framework of blockchain, which could provide a platform for distributed ledger, it has distributed blocks and ledgers to make decentralized trading by using blockchain technology for Internet of energy.
The Bitcoin protocol, based on a peer-to-peer network enables transactions and blocks to be propagated to all the nodes in a decentralized manner. The information is verified and stored across the nodes as a distributed data ledger, the Blockchain. A node can have a maximum of 8 outgoing connections. The selection of outgoing connections are carried out in a random manner and information is broadcasted to these nodes by flooding. Transaction propagation delays in the network results in temporary inconsistencies in the ledger information resulting in blockchain forks. These can lead to possible double spending attacks. This paper addresses the issue of transaction propagation delay in the network. We present a simulation model of Bitcoin network. The effect of varying the number of outgoing connections and its implication in propagation delay is analyzed to determine the optimum limit of outgoing connections. Further, the idea of selection of nodes based on combination of two parameters, proximity to the sending node and random selection and its effect on transaction propagation delay is explored. Simulation results prove that this method further decreases transaction propagation delay.
Internet of Things (IoT) has been experiencing exponential growth in recent years, but still faces many serious challenges. The distributed ledger technology (DLT), e.g., Blockchain, not only appears to be promising to address these technical challenges, but also brings tremendous opportunities for new application and business models. However, the convergence of IoT and DLT is yet a goal far beyond our reach today. Among many problems that have not been sufficiently understood, a fundamental one is how to design appropriate consensus mechanisms for DLT applied to IoT, which is the theme of this paper. We first discuss the potential benefits of applying DLT to IoT, and identify major challenges posed to DLT by IoT. Then we make a survey of existing DLT consensus mechanisms, to summarize major principles and discuss their pros and cons when applied in IoT.
David Vangulick, Bertrand Cornélusse, Damien Ernst
Energy communities and peer-to-peer energy exchanges are expected to play an important role in the energy transition. In this context, the blockchain approach can be employed to foster this decentralized energy market. Our goal is to determine the design that should allow a Distribution System Operator (DSO) to accept peer-to-peer energy exchanges based on a distributed ledger supported by the blockchain technology. To this end, we will evaluate several designs based on criteria such as acceptance of the wholesale/retail market, the resilience of the consensus to approve a block, the accuracy, traceability, privacy and security of the proposed schemes.
Blockchain uses the idea of storing transaction data in the form of a distributed ledger wherein each node in the network stores a current copy of the sequence of transactions (ledger) in the form of a hash chain. Storing the entire ledger incurs a high storage cost that grows undesirably large for high transaction rates and large networks. In this work we use secret key sharing, private key encryption, and distributed storage to design a coding scheme such that each node stores only a part of each transaction thereby reducing storage cost to a fraction of the original. When further using dynamic zone allocation, we show the coding scheme can also improve the data integrity.
One of the distinguishing features of blockchain-based Distributed Autonomous Organizations(DAO) is lack of a central authority. Changes to blockchain data is achieved through consensus amongst blockchain network participants, rather than through a central node's authoritative decision. Similarly, governance, i.e., changes to features and underlying source code, is achieved through a decentralized mechanism. As adoption of blockchain has increased, the need to evolve and adopt new features has grown. These changes highlight the mechanism by which the network, rather than a central node, makes decisions. One change in particular, proposed increases to the block size to address scalability limitations, has been particularly demonstrative of the governance mechanisms employed by disparate blockchains. For example, two digital currency projects, Bitcoin and Dash, employ significantly different governance mechanisms: the Dash Decentralized Governance By Blockchain (DGBB) process, and the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process, to decide what changes to make to their blockchains. Dash governance was able to decide to alter the block size in a matter of hours, while Bitcoin governance took several years to make the same decision. This paper evaluates the governance mechanisms of blockchain projects using the change in block size as an exemplar. Two prominent governance mechanisms are described, compared, and assessed based upon how effective they came to consensus and made the decision to change to support the disparate needs of stakeholders.
Cash-less payment via a variety of credit, debit or prepaid cards is pervasive in our interconnected society, but not so ubiquitous in remote rural regions where network connectivity is intermittent. We proposed a cash-less payment scheme for remote villages based on blockchains that allow maintaining a record of verifiable transactions in a distributed manner. We overcome the limitations of intermittent network connectivity by solely relying on blockchain mining nodes in the village for transaction processing and verification. The bank joins as a peer and monitors node behaviors, rewards miners and processes currency exchanges whenever the connectivity is available. We take advantage of the Ethereum network to develop our solution and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed system on off-the-shelf computing devices. We emulate a remote village scenario with intermittent network connectivity and show the robustness and reliability of the proposed system.
Van Hoa Nguyen, Yvon Bésanger, Quoc Tuan Tran, Minh Tri Le
As more and more distributed renewable energy resources are integrated to the grid, the traditional consumers have become the prosumers who can sell back their surplus energy to the others who are in energy shortage. This peer-to-peer (P2P) energy transaction framework benefits the end users, financially and in term of energy security; and the network operators, in term of flexibility in DRES management, peak load shifting and regulation of voltage/frequency. Environmentally, P2P energy transaction also helps to reduce carbon footprint, reduces DRES payback period and incentivizes the installation of DRES. The current centralized market model is no longer suitable and it is therefore necessary to develop an adapted decentralized architecture for the advanced P2P energy transaction framework intra/inter-micro grid. In this paper, we discuss several distributed ledger approaches for such framework: Blockchain, Block Lattice and Directed Acyclic Graph (the Tangle). The technical advantages of these architectures as well as the persistent challenges are then considered.
In recent years, the increasing concerns around the centralized cloud web services (e.g. privacy, governance, surveillance, security) have triggered the emergence of new distributed technologies, such as IPFS or the Blockchain. These innovations have tackled technical challenges that were unresolved until their appearance. Existing models of peer-to-peer systems need a revision to cover the spectrum of potential systems that can be now implemented as peer-to-peer systems. This work presents a framework to build these systems. It uses an agent-oriented approach in an open environment where agents have only partial information of the system data. The proposal covers data access, data discovery and data trust in peer-to-peer systems where different actors may interact. Moreover, the framework proposes a distributed architecture for these open systems, and provides guidelines to decide in which cases Blockchain technology may be required, or when other technologies may be sufficient.
Online portals include an increasing amount of user feedback in form of ratings and reviews. Recent research highlighted the importance of this feedback and confirmed that positive feedback improves product sales figures and thus its success. Online portals' operators act as central authorities throughout the overall review process. In the worst case, operators can exclude users from submitting reviews, modify existing reviews, and introduce fake reviews by fictional users. This paper presents ReviewChain, a decentralized review approach. Our approach avoids central authorities by using blockchain technologies, decentralized apps and storage. It enables users to submit and retrieve untampered reviews. We highlight the implementation challenges encountered when realizing our approach on the public Ethereum blockchain. Then, we discuss possible design alternatives and their trade-offs regarding costs, security, and trustworthiness. Finally, we analyze which design decision should be chosen to support specific trade-offs and present resulting combinations of decentralized blockchain technologies, also with conventional centralized technologies.
This paper addresses a secure caching scheme for information-centric network (ICN)-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In order to achieve the above mechanism, we utilize both the public-key cryptography technique and the blockchain technique, which enable data to be safely gathered and the decentralized and crossverified sensing data to be copied and stored. In addition, we propose a protocol design for introducing the proposed structure into an ICN-based WSN system. Furthermore, we formulate statistical models and demonstrate numerical results by performing computer simulations and hardware-based experiments.
In the Internet of Things (IoT) vision, conventional devices become smart and autonomous. This vision is turning into a reality thanks to advances in technology, but there are still challenges to address, particularly in the security domain e.g., data reliability. Taking into account the predicted evolution of the IoT in the coming years, it is necessary to provide confidence in this huge incoming information source. Blockchain has emerged as a key technology that will transform the way in which we share information. Building trust in distributed environments without the need for authorities is a technological advance that has the potential to change many industries, the IoT among them. Disruptive technologies such as big data and cloud computing have been leveraged by IoT to overcome its limitations since its conception, and we think blockchain will be one of the next ones. This paper focuses on this relationship, investigates challenges in blockchain IoT applications, and surveys the most relevant work in order to analyze how blockchain could potentially improve the IoT.
Blockchain-based replicated ledgers, pioneered in Bitcoin, are effective against double spending, but inherently attract centralised mining pools and incompressible transaction delays.
In this paper we discuss a design philosophy for interoperable blockchain systems, using the design philosophy of the Internet architecture as the basis to identify key design principles. Several interoperability challenges are discussed in the context of cross-domain transactions. We illustrate how these principles are informing the interoperability architecture of the MIT Tradecoin system.
We present IPchain, a blockchain to store the allocations and delegations of IP addresses, with the aim of easing the deployment of secure interdomain routing systems. Interdomain routing security is of vital importance to the Internet since it prevents unwanted traffic redirections. IPchain makes use of blockchains' properties to provide flexible trust models and simplified management when compared to existing systems. In this paper we argue that Proof of Stake is a suitable consensus algorithm for IPchain due to the unique incentive structure of this use-case. We have implemented and evaluated IPchain's performance and scalability storing around 150k IP prefixes in a 1GB chain.
In this work, we present a low-latency partition tolerant distributed ledger using a novel directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure. By forcing information to be published at specific deterministic locations, we avoid complex consensus algorithms and eliminate confirmation periods. We implement our DAG over a fully decentralized overlay network, leveraging BitTorrent concepts for peer-to-peer (P2P) rendezvous and block propagation. We compute overall expected latency using Erd¨os-R´enyi random graph models and present initial proof-of-concept software. The resulting work will allow anyone to create fully decentralized services (records, databases, etc.) resistant to attack, manipulation, and censorship.