Blockchains and Smart Contracts for the Internet of Things
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.
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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Posted Content•
TL;DR: This paper presents a blockchain-based IoT security architecture that 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.
Abstract: 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.
30 citations
Cites background from "Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..."
...3 Security properties Based on existing research [13, 14, 12, 19], the following security properties that are particularly relevant for IoT systems are as follows....
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...high bandwidth and delays) and hence may not be suited for IoT applications [12, 13]....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a novel blockchain model that can be adopted by governments to establish government-led blockchain ecosystem for government services based on the outcomes of their analysis of permissioned blockchain platform, and analysis of blockchain powered housing rentals use case that is being implemented by the Dubai Government.
Abstract: Blockchain, a Distributed Ledger Technology, is a disruptive and revolutionary technology that enables transacting data in a decentralized structure without the need for trusted central authorities. Many industries have taken steps to unleash the potential of blockchain technology, including the government sector, and early adopters are exploring the use of blockchain as one of the critical capabilities needed to create new business models and to radically transform government services and functions. However, despite this interest in adopting Blockchain technology, there is a lack of Blockchain frameworks or reference models/architecture that addresses government services in literature. In this paper, we propose a novel blockchain model that can be adopted by governments to establish government-led blockchain ecosystem for government services. The blockchain model is proposed based on the outcomes of our analysis of permissioned blockchain platform, and analysis of blockchain powered housing rentals use case that is being implemented by the Dubai Government. The proposed blockchain model outcomes includes a blockchain governance structure, participants and roles definition, and network architecture design which explains the deployment options and components. We also explain the model lifecycle and blockchain services, and we shed the light on the security and performance of the model. The study also includes exploring many blockchain use cases used by governments through proofs of concept or prototypes. Our analysis of Hyperledger Fabric design features shows the platform’s relevance to government services and use cases. The Hyperledger Fabric analysis also identifies the platform’s actors, services, processes and data structure of Hyperledger Fabric.
30 citations
TL;DR: A novel architectural framework is introduced that enables the virtualization of an IoT platform with minimum functions to support specific IoT services and host the instance in an edge node, close to the end user, and provides twice as much transmission speed as that from the conventional cloud-based IoT platform.
Abstract: With the advancement of Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology, various domains, such as smart factories and smart cars have used this new technology to provide value-added services. In addition, technologies, such as multiaccess edge computing (MEC) and network slicing provide another opportunity for the IoT to support more advanced and real-time services that could not have been previously supported. However, the simple integration of such technologies into the IoT does not take the full advantage of MEC and network slicing or the reduction of latency and traffic prioritization, respectively. Therefore, there is a strong need for an efficient integration mechanism for IoT platforms to maximize the benefit of using such technologies. In this article, we introduce a novel architectural framework that enables the virtualization of an IoT platform with minimum functions to support specific IoT services and host the instance in an edge node, close to the end user. As the instance provides its service at the edge node, where the MEC node and network slice are located, the traffic for the end user does not need to traverse back to the cloud. This architecture guarantees not only low latency but also efficient management of IoT services at the edge node. To show the feasibility of the proposed architecture, we conducted an experimental evaluation by comparing the transmission time of both IoT services running on the central cloud and those using sliced IoT functions in the edge gateway. The results show that the proposed architecture provides twice as much transmission speed as that from the conventional cloud-based IoT platform.
30 citations
Cites background from "Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..."
...Due to the nature of the blockchains, it is evaluated as a technology that reduces the possibility of data forgery and alternations and prevents the act of producing illegal data for malicious purposes [48], [49]....
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25 Apr 2018
TL;DR: A framework for Internet of Things based on cognitive systems and blockchain technology is proposed and a recommender system based on the proposed framework is suggested.
Abstract: Internet of Things, cognitive systems, and blockchain technology are three fields which have created numerous revolutions in software development. It seems that a combination among these fields may results in emerging a high potential and interesting field. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a framework for Internet of Things based on cognitive systems and blockchain technology. To the best of our knowledge, there is no framework for Internet of Things based on cognitive systems and blockchain. In order to study the applicability of the proposed framework, a recommender system based on the proposed framework is suggested. Since the proposed framework is novel, the suggested recommender system is novel. The suggested recommender system is compared with the existing recommender systems. The results show that the suggested recommender system has several benefits which are not available in the existing recommender systems.
30 citations
Cites background from "Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..."
...Note that, the codes of smart contracts are stored by the blockchain unit in a blockchain [18]....
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01 Nov 2018
TL;DR: The immutability aspect of blockchain and its benefits and compare it with a traditional database are presented and the standard cyber security environment is discussed and both of them in different cyber-attack scenarios are discussed.
Abstract: Blockchain shows a huge prospective in the coming future. It is atechnology that provides the possibility of generating and sharing transaction ledgers that are tamper proof. Use cases of Blockchain are enlarging in numbers and width in multiple areas like, Internet of Things (IoT), finance and security. Even though many public and private sectors are introducing this technology, it remains a fear to others due to their lack of familiarity and the point of it not taking any big role in any major security enterprises till now. In this paper we will explain what is a blockchain and define its characteristics, benefits, and the differences between them. And help in choosing the suitable type that accommodates your needs. Then we present the immutability aspect of blockchain and its benefits and compare it with a traditional database. And finally, we will discuss blockchain security (For public and private blockchains) and compare it with a standard cyber security environment and discuss both of them in different cyber-attack scenarios.s
30 citations
Cites background from "Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..."
...This guarantees the identicality of all copies of the ledger without the necessity of an official ‘‘centralized’ ledger copy [9]....
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...Smart contracts are blockchain running programs that allow user interactions in a similar way as any other program on any standard computer [9]....
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References
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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.
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.
5,208 citations
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.
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.
4,901 citations
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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.
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.
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...
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...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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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.
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.
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•
19 Jun 2014TL;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.
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.
1,811 citations
"Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..." refers methods in this paper
...popular Raft algorithm [30], is used as a consensus mechanism in Juno [31]....
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