For decentralised P2P networks, it is very important to have a mechanism in place that allows the nodes to control resource usage and prevent flooding and denial-of-service attacks with spam. In this paper, we discuss and compare the different approaches to fully decentralised resource control that are used by projects in the cryptocurrency space. The introduced methods are then applied to design a decentralised exchange for Namecoin names (or more generally, crypto assets) as an example.
Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming necessities of people's daily life and establishing itself as an essential part of future Internet. One of the challenges for using IoT is the security of data collected by trillions of IoT devices and used by millions of services. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) provides a distributed security method which can benefit IoT. Yet challenges are put forward when integrating DLT with IoT, such as scalability and heterogeneous capability of IoT devices. In this paper, we propose a mechanism for integrating DLT in IoT by using edge computing technology, taking the scalability and heterogeneous capability of IoT devices into consideration. IoT devices are clustered dynamically into groups based on various proximity context information.
Distributed Ledger Technologies have promising applications in the Internet of Things. However, scalability and support for micropayments remain problems for blockchain-based applications, therefore other alternatives such as IOTA should be considered. This work reports on an experimental evaluation of IOTA on several different IoT platforms. We show that even though the communication overhead to join the IOTA network can be significantly reduced by adapting a proxy-based architecture, the computational overhead remains high. We conclude that IOTA is not currently suitable for battery-powered IoT devices.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is visioned to connect everything in the world by a common networking technique. In spite that Internet protocol is the most prevailing networking solution, it is difficult to adapt to IoT which is born with scalability, heterogeneity, and dynamics. Thanks to the content-centric communication paradigm, it exerts data-naming strategy to incorporate the heterogeneity and dynamics so as to apply for IoT, composing Named Data Networking (NDN) of Things. However, the paradigm also introduces new types of security attacks. In this paper, the NDN of Things architecture will be illustrated and the security analysis is conducted. Furthermore, the potential security attacks of NDN of Things are categorized and the performance impact caused by security attacks is evaluated. Finally, the solutions for NDN of Things security attacks are discussed and a blockchain solution is illustrated.
Sang‐Min Choi, Jiho Park, Quan Nguyen, André Cronje
We describe \emph{Fantom}, a framework for asynchronous distributed systems. \emph{Fantom} is based on the Lachesis Protocol~\cite{lachesis01}, which uses asynchronous event transmission for practical Byzantine fault tolerance (pBFT) to create a leaderless, scalable, asynchronous Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). We further optimize the \emph{Lachesis Protocol} by introducing a permission-less network for dynamic participation. Root selection cost is further optimized by the introduction of an n-row flag table, as well as optimizing path selection by introducing domination relationships. We propose an alternative framework for distributed ledgers, based on asynchronous partially ordered sets with logical time ordering instead of blockchains. This paper builds upon the original proposed family of \emph{Lachesis-class} consensus protocols. We formalize our proofs into a model that can be applied to abstract asynchronous distributed system.
Ramón Alcarria, Borja Bordel, Tomás Robles, Diego R. Martín · 5 authors
Resource consumption in residential areas requires novel contributions in the field of consumer information management and collaborative mechanisms for the exchange of resources, in order to optimize the overall consumption of the community. We propose an authorization system to facilitate access to consumer information and resource trading, based on blockchain technology. Our proposal is oriented to the Smart communities, an evolution of Community Energy Management Systems, in which communities are involved in the monitoring and coordination of resource consumption. The proposed environment allows a more reliable management of monitoring and authorization functions, with secure data access and storage and delegation of controller functions among householders. We provide the definition of virtual assets for energy and water resource sharing as an auction, which encourages the optimization of global consumption and saves resources. The proposed solution is implemented and validated in application scenarios that demonstrate the suitability of the defined consensus mechanism, trustworthiness in the level of provided security for resource monitoring and delegation and reduction on resource consumption by the resource trading contribution.
Blockchain has emerged as a decentralized and trustable ledger for recording and storing digital transactions. The mining process of Blockchain, however, incurs a heavy computational workload for miners to solve the proof-of-work puzzle (i.e., a series of the hashing computation), which is prohibitive from the perspective of the mobile terminals (MTs). The advanced multi-access mobile edge computing (MEC), which enables the MTs to offload part of the computational workloads (for solving the proof-of-work) to the nearby edge-servers (ESs), provides a promising approach to address this issue. By offloading the computational workloads via multi-access MEC, the MTs can effectively increase their successful probabilities when participating in the mining game and gain the consequent reward (i.e., winning the bitcoin). However, as a compensation to the ESs which provide the computational resources to the MTs, the MTs need to pay the ESs for the corresponding resource-acquisition costs. Thus, to investigate the trade-off between obtaining the computational resources from the ESs (for solving the proof-of-work) and paying for the consequent cost, we formulate an optimization problem in which the MTs determine their acquired computational resources from different ESs, with the objective of maximizing the MTs' social net-reward in the mining process while keeping the fairness among the MTs. In spite of the non-convexity of the formulated problem, we exploit its layered structure and propose efficient distributed algorithms for the MTs to individually determine their optimal computational resources acquired from different ESs. Numerical results are provided to validate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithms and the performance of our proposed multi-access MEC for Blockchain.
Van Hoa Nguyen, Yvon Bésanger, Quoc Tuan Tran, Minh Tri Le
As more and more distributed renewable energy resources are integrated to the\ngrid, the traditional consumers have become the prosumers who can sell back\ntheir surplus energy to the others who are in energy shortage. This\npeer-to-peer (P2P) energy transaction framework benefits the end users,\nfinancially and in term of energy security; and the network operators, in term\nof flexibility in DRES management, peak load shifting and regulation of\nvoltage/frequency. Environmentally, P2P energy transaction also helps to reduce\ncarbon footprint, reduces DRES payback period and incentivizes the installation\nof DRES. The current centralized market model is no longer suitable and it is\ntherefore necessary to develop an adapted decentralized architecture for the\nadvanced P2P energy transaction framework intra/inter-microgrid. In this paper,\nwe discuss several distributed ledger approaches for such framework:\nBlockchain, Block Lattice and Directed Acyclic Graph (the Tangle). The\ntechnical advantages of these architectures as well as the persistent\nchallenges are then considered.\n
Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain (BC) technologies have been dominating their respective research domains for some time. IoT offers automation at the finest level in different fields, while BC provides secure transaction processing for asset exchanges. The capability of IoT devices to generate transactions prompts their integration with BC as the next logical step. The biggest challenges in this integration are the scalability of ledger and rate of transaction execution in BC. On one hand, due to their large numbers, IoT devices will generate transactions at a rate which current block chain solutions cannot handle. On the other hand, implementing BC peers onto IoT devices is impossible due to resource constraints. This prohibits direct integration of both technologies in their current state. In this paper, we propose a solution to address these challenges by using a local peer network to bridge the gap. It restricts the number of transactions which enters the global BC by implementing a scalable local ledger, without compromising on the peer validation of transactions at local and global level. The testbed evaluations show significant reduction in the block weight and ledger size on global peers. The solution also indirectly improves the transaction processing rate of all peers due to load distribution.
Energy Internet provides important support to power transmission and substation distribution links, security is particularly significant. However, access authentication centralized to the certification center has brought great pressure on computing and communications. In this paper, a distributed authentication scheme for the energy Internet is proposed based on the blockchain technology, which is decentralized and undeniable. A PBFT consensus mechanism is implemented with the Shamir threshold secret sharing mechanism. Experiments show that the scheme can effectively improve the concurrent access efficiency of Energy Internet terminals.
With the continuous development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the surge in data generated by sensors and smart devices has caused data overload in designated centralized data centers. However, centralized data centers, such as cloud storage, cannot afford to manage these gigantic data in the suitable way. Due to the lots of devices and senors continuously creating data, traditional IoT architectures must address many challenges that are not designed to provide trust, security, resiliency, and low latency. To solve theses problems, we propose a decentralized architecture named MicrothingsChain based on blockchain with smart contract, which enables edge computing nodes storing corresponding domain IoT data and interacting with each other safely. It brings computing and storage capabilities to the edge of the IoT network and realizes distributed storage of large amounts of data. Specially, MicrothingsChain adopts publish-subscribe mode, in which users can access the data across domain. Furthermore, we present one cryptographic currency for our ecology named MicroCoin. The security analysis and experimental results demonstrate that MicrothingsChain is suitable in practice.
Mehmet Demir, Atefeh Mashatan, Ozgur Turetken, Alexander Ferworn
There are various compelling use cases of blockchain technology in the energy and utility sector. We survey the benefits and challenges of blockchain technology on these use cases. Most of these cases focus on the trade of energy. We introduce a novel use case on transparent disaster recovery from service disruptions. We describe the actors on the system, identify trust issues, and show the benefits of using blockchain in this use case.
The decentralization, transparency, fairness and openness of blockchain technology are consistent with the concept of energy Internet, which can effectively solve the problems of data authenticity, trust crisis in the energy Internet system. Firstly, the market architecture, operation mechanism and existing problems of the energy Internet are introduced, then the characteristics of the blockchain technology and its consistency with the energy Internet are discussed, then typical applications of blockchain technology in energy Internet trading system, distributed energy industry and electric vehicle industry are introduced. Finally, the challenges faced by blockchain technology in the energy Internet are analyzed and a conclusion is given.
In recent years, Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies have attracted a great deal of attention from the whole industry including the financial as a new settlement system. Transaction information of these cryptocurrencies is stored in a distribution ledger called Blockchain on the P2P network through processing such as PoW. Meanwhile, since PoW requires a large amount of computer resources, researches on private / consortium type blockchain that do not need PoW. In this paper, we propose a decentralized netting protocol using a consortium type block chain that has the channel function. On a system that implements the proposed protocol, netting settlement can be performed on P2P hiding information of the sender and receiver name of transaction, amount of money, calculation butt of netting, and without setting up a specific central organization such as a central server.
Recently, Internet of Things (IoT) and block chain technology are growing rapidly. Particularly, there is an attempt to change the centralized access control method of IoT into a distributed method using a block chain. With the access control method currently presented, data communication between physically separated IoT devices is impossible. In addition, a policy corresponding to a number of dynamic IoT scenarios must be generated in advance in order for data exchanges to be performed. In this paper, we propose a dynamic access control scheme to solve the problems of the existing access control method for direct data communication between devices and to cope with the dynamic environment of IoT.
Among the various challenges faced by the P2P file sharing systems like BitTorrent, the most common attack on the basic foundation of such systems is: Free-riding. Generally, free-riders are the users in the file sharing network who avoid contributing any resources but tend to consume the resources unethically from the P2P network whereas white-washers are more specific category of free-riders that voluntarily leave the system in a frequent fashion and appearing again and again with different identities to escape from the penal actions imposed by the network. BitTorrent being a collaborative distributed platform requires techniques for discouraging and punishing such user behavior. In this paper, we propose that “Instead of punishing, we may focus more on rewarding the honest peers”. This approach could be presented as an alternative to other mechanisms of rewarding the peers like tit-for-tat [10], reciprocity based etc., built for the BitTorrent platform. The prime objective of BitTrusty is: providing incentives to the cooperative peers by rewarding in terms of cryptocoins based on blockchain. We have anticipated three ways of achieving the above defined objective. We are further investigating on how to integrate these two technologies of distributed systems viz. P2P file sharing systems and blockchain, and with this new paradigm, interesting research areas can be further developed, both in the field of P2P cryptocurrency networks and also when these networks are combined with other distributed scenarios.
Oct 1, 2018·2018 IEEE SmartWorld, Ubiquitous Intelligence & Computing, Advanced & Trusted Computing, Scalable Computing & Communications, Cloud & Big Data Computing, Internet of People and Smart City Innovation (SmartWorld/SCALCOM/UIC/ATC/CBDCom/IOP/SCI)
The ubiquitous ID (uID) architecture provides dynamic and flexible context-awareness frameworks necessary in ubiquitous computing. Its basic idea is to assign 128 bit unique identifiers, each of which is called a ucode (ubiquitous code), to real-world entities. To guarantee the uniqueness of ucodes, current ucode ownreships are maintained by a hierarchical structure like DNS. In this traditional system, processing ucode transactions between organizations is cumbersome and inefficient because the reliability of owner information is dependent on individual organizations. To solve this problem, we designed a ucode ownership management system on a blockchain which is a decentralized platform. In this system, we proposed a blockchain-based ucode allocation method, which requires a simple procedure and only one transaction. This proposed method is user-friendly and efficient compared with ucode allocation methods to which we simply apply current blockchain-based name registration methods requiring a complex procedure and at least two transactions. Finally, we conducted a case study about these ucode allocation methods built on the Ethereum blockchain. From this result, we compared the usability and security of each ucode allocation method in Ethereum.
Avelino F. Zorzo, Henry C. Nunes, Roben Castagna Lunardi, Regio A. Michelin · 5 authors
In the last few years, novel approaches for using blockchain to solve Internet of Things (IoT) security and dependability issues have been proposed. Currently, different solutions were applied to Smart Homes, Smart Cities, Smart Grids, Supply Chains, Industry, and Vehicular Networks scenarios. Despite of that, the main advantages on the adoption of different architectures, models and algorithms proposed in the state of art of blockchain in IoT scenarios are not yet clear. This paper presents some discussion about the usage of blockchain technology in IoT environments and proposes a layer model of blockchains for IoT. In addition, we present an overview of the latest research regarding network architectures, consensus algorithms, data management, and applications. Finally, this paper presents open issues and future trends about blockchain in IoT.
Bitcoin has utilized Proof-of-Work(PoW), which prevents double-spend attack in the distributed network. PoW is a consensus protocol that depends on a computing power, therefore it is highly difficult for malicious nodes to attack. However, emerging a group called mining pool encourage the centralization of computing power. This may make it easy to tamper with a distributed ledger called Blockchain of Bitcoin.In this paper, we propose the new protocol which evaluates computing power for each nodes and adjusts difficulty of generating a block based on the evaluation. This gives an equal opportunity for successful mining. Furthermore, reward for user's incentive is also adjusted based on the evaluation.
Enormous research efforts have been investigated in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networking to improve users safety, traffic condition, and provide different reliable services, that are challenging tasks to accomplish in the current Internet model. In-network caching is one of the promising features of Named Data Networking, a new future Internet architecture based on content name instead of the host address. It aims to enhance the network performance, data availability, distribution, and access. The applicability of NDN in VANET introduced several issues, especially in the security and trust relationships. In this paper, we present a reputation-based blockchain mechanism to secure the cache in the vehicular environment and enhance the trust between cache stores and consumer vehicles. The obtained results demonstrate that our scheme outperforms the normal NDN behavior by providing only trust content in the network.
Blockchain-based cryptocurrency systems such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have attracted much attention during the last decade. In recent years, a trend of combining Internet of Things (IoT) devices with blockchain technology has emerged. Digital payments can be made on front-end IoT devices, while a back-end blockchain serves as a distributed ledger to ensure the validity of payments across the system. Nevertheless, fast payments are usually on demand in such a scenario, but an open problem still remains on how to protect blockchain-based systems from double-spending attacks in the context of fast payment. Off-chain techniques, such as Lightning Network and Raiden Network, act as countermeasures to this problem, but they all suffer from the hidden transactions problem. To combat this problem, we propose FastPay, a solution for achieving secure fast payments in blockchain-backed edge-IoT systems. Preliminary evaluation on our prototype demonstrates the effectiveness of FastPay.
In the recent years, there has been a boom in the number of connected devices due to developments in the field of Internet of things. This has also increased the requirements of security specification. The proposed method is introducing a secure information transmission system by using Blockchain technology. Blockchain is a relatively new technology which was introduced by stoshi nakamoto, which was also the basis for developing crypto currency [bitcoin]. Crypto currencies are made transparent and secure using their network architecture, which is a combo of a decentralized and distributed network. In this paper is try to exploit the same methodology used in crypto currencies to develope an IOT network, where the devices can talk to their peers in a secure manner. They explored all the different networks and features of developing a Decentralized application that is named as Dapp.
Blockchain technology has gained immense popularity because many researchers believe that it could solve numerous problems and could be applied in various fields of study. Unfortunately, behind its potentials, blockchain also possessed many challenges and limitations. The highlighted problem is the usability aspect of blockchain technology examined from developer and user perspective. This paper tried to address this problem by proposing query functionalities, with the help of query layer system, to facilitate the developer and the user to access blockchain data easily. There are three main query functionalities that will be discussed in this paper: (1) finding blockchain data based on multiple search parameters (retrieval query), (2) providing simple statistical analysis from a collection of blockchain data (aggregate query) and (3) sorting blockchain data according to its blockchain component (ranking query). For the implementation stage, Ethereum is used as platform to provide blockchain network, MongoDB is used as cloud storage service and REST API is used as web services. For the testing stage, throughput and time response are used to evaluate the performance of the developed query functionalities in the query layer system. The results are: (1) the throughput of query layer system is lower than Ethereum service for blockchain data retrieval and (2) the time response of query layer system is affected by the number of thread and the amount of data stored in cloud storage.