Blockchains and Smart Contracts for the Internet of Things

doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2016.2566339

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Blockchains and Smart Contracts for the Internet of Things

Journal Article•DOI•

Blockchains and Smart Contracts for the Internet of Things

Konstantinos Christidis¹, Michael Devetsikiotis¹•Institutions (1)

North Carolina State University¹

10 May 2016-IEEE Access (IEEE)-Vol. 4, pp 2292-2303

TL;DR: The conclusion is that the blockchain-IoT combination is powerful and can cause significant transformations across several industries, paving the way for new business models and novel, distributed applications.

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Abstract: Motivated by the recent explosion of interest around blockchains, we examine whether they make a good fit for the Internet of Things (IoT) sector. Blockchains allow us to have a distributed peer-to-peer network where non-trusting members can interact with each other without a trusted intermediary, in a verifiable manner. We review how this mechanism works and also look into smart contracts—scripts that reside on the blockchain that allow for the automation of multi-step processes. We then move into the IoT domain, and describe how a blockchain-IoT combination: 1) facilitates the sharing of services and resources leading to the creation of a marketplace of services between devices and 2) allows us to automate in a cryptographically verifiable manner several existing, time-consuming workflows. We also point out certain issues that should be considered before the deployment of a blockchain network in an IoT setting: from transactional privacy to the expected value of the digitized assets traded on the network. Wherever applicable, we identify solutions and workarounds. Our conclusion is that the blockchain-IoT combination is powerful and can cause significant transformations across several industries, paving the way for new business models and novel, distributed applications.

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Journal Article•DOI•

Blockchain challenges and opportunities: a survey

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Zibin Zheng¹, Shaoan Xie¹, Hong-Ning Dai², Xiangping Chen¹, Huaimin Wang³ - Show less +1 more•Institutions (3)

Sun Yat-sen University¹, Macau University of Science and Technology², National University of Defense Technology³

17 Oct 2018-International Journal of Web and Grid Services

TL;DR: The blockchain taxonomy is given, the typical blockchain consensus algorithms are introduced, typical blockchain applications are reviewed, and the future directions in the blockchain technology are pointed out.

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Abstract: Blockchain has numerous benefits such as decentralisation, persistency, anonymity and auditability. There is a wide spectrum of blockchain applications ranging from cryptocurrency, financial services, risk management, internet of things (IoT) to public and social services. Although a number of studies focus on using the blockchain technology in various application aspects, there is no comprehensive survey on the blockchain technology in both technological and application perspectives. To fill this gap, we conduct a comprehensive survey on the blockchain technology. In particular, this paper gives the blockchain taxonomy, introduces typical blockchain consensus algorithms, reviews blockchain applications and discusses technical challenges as well as recent advances in tackling the challenges. Moreover, this paper also points out the future directions in the blockchain technology.

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1,928 citations

Additional excerpts

...Blockchain can also help in improving privacy in IoT applications....
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...Internet of things (IoT), one of the most promising information and communication technologies (ICT), is ramping up recently....
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...The typical killer applications of IoT include the logistic management with Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology [4], smart homes [31], e-health [37], smart grids [34], Maritime Industry [83], etc. Blockchain technologies can potentially improve the IoT sector....
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...In particular, Hardjono et al. [38] proposed a privacy-preserving method for commissioning an IoT device into a cloud ecosystem....
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...Zhang et al. [86] propose a new IoT E-business model and realize the transaction of smart property based on blockchain and smart contract....
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Journal Article•DOI•

IoT security: Review, blockchain solutions, and open challenges

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Minhaj Ahmad Khan¹, Khaled Salah²•Institutions (2)

Bahauddin Zakariya University¹, Khalifa University²

01 Nov 2017-Future Generation Computer Systems

TL;DR: It is discussed, how blockchain, which is the underlying technology for bitcoin, can be a key enabler to solve many IoT security problems.

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1,743 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

A systematic literature review of blockchain-based applications: Current status, classification and open issues

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Fran Casino¹, Thomas K. Dasaklis¹, Constantinos Patsakis¹•Institutions (1)

University of Piraeus¹

01 Mar 2019-Telematics and Informatics

TL;DR: A comprehensive classification of blockchain-enabled applications across diverse sectors such as supply chain, business, healthcare, IoT, privacy, and data management is presented, and key themes, trends and emerging areas for research are established.

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1,310 citations

Cites background or methods from "Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..."

...There are indeed some reviews focused on the particular role of blockchain including the development of decentralised and data-intensive applications for the IoT (Conoscenti et al., 2016; Christidis and Devetsikiotis, 2016), and managing big data in a decentralised fashion (Karafiloski and Mishev, 2017a)....
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...Current literature categorises blockchain networks in several ways (Buterin, 2015; Zheng et al., 2016; Eris Industries, 2016; Christidis and Devetsikiotis, 2016; Kravchenko, 2016; Wood, 2016)....
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...Blockchain interoperability enables independent and secure real-time payment services, enhancing traditional commerce, ecommerce or public and private transportation systems (Christidis and Devetsikiotis, 2016)....
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...Therefore, within the blockchain context, SCs are scripts running in a decentralised manner and stored in the blockchain (Christidis and Devetsikiotis, 2016) without relying on any trusted authority....
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...The inherent characteristics of blockchain architecture and design provide properties like transparency, robustness, auditability, and security (Greenspan, 2015a; Christidis and Devetsikiotis, 2016)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

On blockchain and its integration with IoT. Challenges and opportunities

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Ana Reyna¹, Cristian Martín¹, Jaime Chen¹, Enrique Soler¹, Manuel Díaz¹ - Show less +1 more•Institutions (1)

University of Málaga¹

01 Nov 2018-Future Generation Computer Systems

TL;DR: This paper focuses on the relationship between blockchain and IoT, investigates challenges in blockchain IoT applications, and surveys the most relevant work in order to analyze how blockchain could potentially improve the IoT.

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1,255 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

1 Blockchain’s roles in meeting key supply chain management objectives

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Nir Kshetri¹•Institutions (1)

University of North Carolina at Greensboro¹

01 Apr 2018-International Journal of Information Management

TL;DR: This paper examines how blockchain is likely to affect key supply chain management objectives such as cost, quality, speed, dependability, risk reduction, sustainability and flexibility and illustrates the various mechanisms by which blockchain help achieve the above supply chain objectives.

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1,076 citations

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References

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Open Access

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Journal Article•DOI•

The Byzantine Generals Problem

[...]

Leslie Lamport¹, Robert E. Shostak¹, Marshall C. Pease¹•Institutions (1)

SRI International¹

01 Jul 1982-ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems

TL;DR: The Albanian Generals Problem as mentioned in this paper is a generalization of Dijkstra's dining philosophers problem, where two generals have to come to a common agreement on whether to attack or retreat, but can communicate only by sending messengers who might never arrive.

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Abstract: I have long felt that, because it was posed as a cute problem about philosophers seated around a table, Dijkstra’s dining philosopher’s problem received much more attention than it deserves. (For example, it has probably received more attention in the theory community than the readers/writers problem, which illustrates the same principles and has much more practical importance.) I believed that the problem introduced in [41] was very important and deserved the attention of computer scientists. The popularity of the dining philosophers problem taught me that the best way to attract attention to a problem is to present it in terms of a story. There is a problem in distributed computing that is sometimes called the Chinese Generals Problem, in which two generals have to come to a common agreement on whether to attack or retreat, but can communicate only by sending messengers who might never arrive. I stole the idea of the generals and posed the problem in terms of a group of generals, some of whom may be traitors, who have to reach a common decision. I wanted to assign the generals a nationality that would not offend any readers. At the time, Albania was a completely closed society, and I felt it unlikely that there would be any Albanians around to object, so the original title of this paper was The Albanian Generals Problem. Jack Goldberg was smart enough to realize that there were Albanians in the world outside Albania, and Albania might not always be a black hole, so he suggested that I find another name. The obviously more appropriate Byzantine generals then occurred to me. The main reason for writing this paper was to assign the new name to the problem. But a new paper needed new results as well. I came up with a simpler way to describe the general 3n+1-processor algorithm. (Shostak’s 4-processor algorithm was subtle but easy to understand; Pease’s generalization was a remarkable tour de force.) We also added a generalization to networks that were not completely connected. (I don’t remember whose work that was.) I also added some discussion of practical implementation details.

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5,208 citations

Book Chapter•DOI•

The Byzantine generals problem

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Leslie Lamport¹, Robert E. Shostak¹, Marshall C. Pease¹•Institutions (1)

SRI International¹

04 Oct 2019-Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience

TL;DR: In this article, a group of generals of the Byzantine army camped with their troops around an enemy city are shown to agree upon a common battle plan using only oral messages, if and only if more than two-thirds of the generals are loyal; so a single traitor can confound two loyal generals.

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Abstract: Reliable computer systems must handle malfunctioning components that give conflicting information to different parts of the system. This situation can be expressed abstractly in terms of a group of generals of the Byzantine army camped with their troops around an enemy city. Communicating only by messenger, the generals must agree upon a common battle plan. However, one or more of them may be traitors who will try to confuse the others. The problem is to find an algorithm to ensure that the loyal generals will reach agreement. It is shown that, using only oral messages, this problem is solvable if and only if more than two-thirds of the generals are loyal; so a single traitor can confound two loyal generals. With unforgeable written messages, the problem is solvable for any number of generals and possible traitors. Applications of the solutions to reliable computer systems are then discussed.

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4,901 citations

Book Chapter•DOI•

The Sybil Attack

[...]

John R. Douceur¹•Institutions (1)

Microsoft¹

07 Mar 2002

TL;DR: It is shown that, without a logically centralized authority, Sybil attacks are always possible except under extreme and unrealistic assumptions of resource parity and coordination among entities.

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Abstract: Large-scale peer-to-peer systems face security threats from faulty or hostile remote computing elements. To resist these threats, many such systems employ redundancy. However, if a single faulty entity can present multiple identities, it can control a substantial fraction of the system, thereby undermining this redundancy. One approach to preventing these "Sybil attacks" is to have a trusted agency certify identities. This paper shows that, without a logically centralized authority, Sybil attacks are always possible except under extreme and unrealistic assumptions of resource parity and coordination among entities.

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4,816 citations

"Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..." refers background in this paper

...Because of the Sybil attack [15], consensus in public networks is costly...
[...]
...anyone can join though, this would be catastrophic because of the Sybil attack [15]: a single entity could join with multiple identities, get multiple votes, and thus influence the network to favor this entity’s interests....
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Proceedings Article•DOI•

Practical Byzantine fault tolerance

[...]

Miguel Castro¹, Barbara Liskov¹•Institutions (1)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology¹

22 Feb 1999

TL;DR: A new replication algorithm that is able to tolerate Byzantine faults that works in asynchronous environments like the Internet and incorporates several important optimizations that improve the response time of previous algorithms by more than an order of magnitude.

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Abstract: This paper describes a new replication algorithm that is able to tolerate Byzantine faults. We believe that Byzantinefault-tolerant algorithms will be increasingly important in the future because malicious attacks and software errors are increasingly common and can cause faulty nodes to exhibit arbitrary behavior. Whereas previous algorithms assumed a synchronous system or were too slow to be used in practice, the algorithm described in this paper is practical: it works in asynchronous environments like the Internet and incorporates several important optimizations that improve the response time of previous algorithms by more than an order of magnitude. We implemented a Byzantine-fault-tolerant NFS service using our algorithm and measured its performance. The results show that our service is only 3% slower than a standard unreplicated NFS.

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3,562 citations

"Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..." refers background or methods in this paper

...5If more than 3f + 1 nodes are used, then the quorum thresholds listed in [26] may lead to forks....
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...Tendermint vs PBFT—Tendermint....
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...Sieve [38], a mechanism used in the HyperLedger Fabric project, augments the PBFT algorithm [26] by adding speculative execution and verification phases, inspired by the execute-verify architecture presented in [39]....
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...Tendermint [32] provides BFT tolerance and is similar to the PBFT algorithm; however it provides a tighter guarantee with regards to the results returned to the client when more than one third of the nodes are faulty, and allows for a dynamically changing set of set of validators, and leaders that can be rotated in a round-robin manner, among other optimizations [33]....
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...PBFT works on the assumption that less than one third of the nodes are faulty (f ), which is why say that it requires at least5 3f + 1 nodes....
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Proceedings Article•

In search of an understandable consensus algorithm

[...]

Diego Ongaro¹, John Ousterhout¹•Institutions (1)

Stanford University¹

19 Jun 2014

TL;DR: Raft is a consensus algorithm for managing a replicated log that separates the key elements of consensus, such as leader election, log replication, and safety, and it enforces a stronger degree of coherency to reduce the number of states that must be considered.

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Abstract: Raft is a consensus algorithm for managing a replicated log. It produces a result equivalent to (multi-)Paxos, and it is as efficient as Paxos, but its structure is different from Paxos; this makes Raft more understandable than Paxos and also provides a better foundation for building practical systems. In order to enhance understandability, Raft separates the key elements of consensus, such as leader election, log replication, and safety, and it enforces a stronger degree of coherency to reduce the number of states that must be considered. Results from a user study demonstrate that Raft is easier for students to learn than Paxos. Raft also includes a new mechanism for changing the cluster membership, which uses overlapping majorities to guarantee safety.

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1,811 citations