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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23 Mar 2022
TL;DR: A conceptual framework for the integration of blockchain technology to establish a sustainable tea supply chain, define possible actions and prioritize the possible risks that may arise in this integration process; this will be done through the Spherical Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (SF-AHP) approach as mentioned in this paper .
Abstract: The increasing population and income inequality in the last decades have made it necessary to focus on the concept of sustainability. In the changing world order, with economic crises, instabilities, pandemics, and social media, sustainability awareness differs significantly from past years. In addition, developing new technologies and concepts (big data, blockchain, IoT, robotic, etc.) plays a crucial role in meeting social awareness in terms of sustainability. Food sustainability is also one of the most important pillars in this concept. The integration of new technologies in agriculture and food chains will enable the current world population to use resources more efficiently and sustainably. Blockchain, one of the technologies that emerged with the arrival of Industry 4.0, is a technology that can be used effectively in many sectors. Particularly in supply chain networks, it is seen as a technology that supports the sustainability concept due to its features such as decentralization, reliability, transparency, consensus standards, and traceability. However, since blockchain is an immature and new technology, there are some challenges with integrating it into existing conventional systems. This study aims to present a conceptual framework for the integration of blockchain technology to establish a sustainable tea supply chain, define possible actions, and prioritize the possible risks that may arise in this integration process; this will be done through the Spherical Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (SF-AHP) approach. In this context, initially, the current tea supply chain will be considered and the activities carried out will be defined in terms of technological, environmental, and strategic sustainability. Then, the design that includes the integration of all activities with blockchain technology is presented. The proposed design covers the entire tea supply chain from end to end and is considered with regard to all sustainability dimensions. In the proposed framework, barriers that may be encountered and risks that may arise at each stage of the tea supply chain process are identified; managerial implications are then presented to eliminate these risks. To enhance the use of the recommendations made, risks and barriers are prioritized with SF-AHP management. Thus, the problems that need to be solved primarily in the technological transformation process can be evaluated more clearly. The proposed theoretical framework is expected to extend to all agricultural practices and support technological advances throughout the agricultural sector.
24 citations
TL;DR: This paper secure an encrypted fingerprint template by a symmetric peer-to-peer network and symmetric encryption, and adopts the method of template hashing, which is cost-effective and efficient.
Abstract: Biometrics, with its uniqueness to every individual, has been adapted as a security authentication feature by many institutions. These biometric data are processed into templates that are saved on databases, and a central authority centralizes and controls these databases. This form of storing biometric data, or in our case fingerprint template, is asymmetric and prone to three main security attacks, such as fake template input, template modification or deletion, and channel interception by a malicious attacker. In this paper, we secure an encrypted fingerprint template by a symmetric peer-to-peer network and symmetric encryption. The fingerprint is encrypted by the symmetric key algorithm: Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm and then is uploaded to a symmetrically distributed storage system, the InterPlanetary File system (IPFS). The hash of the templated is stored in a decentralized blockchain. The slow transaction speed of the blockchain has limited its use in real-life applications, such as large file storage, hence, the merge with IPFS to store just the hashes of large files. The encrypted template is uploaded to the IPFS, and its returned digest is stored on the Ethereum network. The implementation of IPFS prevents storing the raw state of the fingerprint template on the Ethereum network in order to reduce cost and also prevent identity theft. This procedure is an improvement of previous systems. By adopting the method of template hashing, the proposed system is cost-effective and efficient. The experimental results depict that the proposed system secures the fingerprint template by encryption, hashing, and decentralization.
24 citations
Cites background from "Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..."
...That is why its use extends to other applications that require the elimination of the central authority [1,3,16]....
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TL;DR: This study uses multiple complementary scientometric methods to generate a panoramic view of the recent developments in blockchain research and finds a close coupling of two research issues that have transformative power, i.e., the potential by the application of cryptocurrency in the real world and the improvement of blockchain technology based on the application requirements.
Abstract: As a new and rapidly developing distributed technology, blockchain has shown substantial impact on the fields of cryptocurrency and e-commerce and thus has attracted the interests of governments, enterprises, and research institutions. As such, it is important to understand the state of blockchain research in order for those institutions to plan their research effectively. Towards this goal, we first integrate two search strategies to construct a representative dataset. Then we analyze the blockchain literature between 2013 and 2018 in this dataset with a science mapping approach and Latent Dirichlet Allocation model. Based on the results of the analysis, we found the following insights: (1) the evolution of blockchain research involves many disciplines while two major disciplines—computer science and business—lead the way. (2) The current research can be divided into four research areas: underlying technology architecture, privacy and security, financial application, and smart scene applications. (3) The evolution of blockchain research has gone through three stages: basic blockchain technology, various business applications, and integration with advanced technologies such as fog computing, Internet of things, and artificial intelligence. (4) We also discovered a close coupling of two research issues that have transformative power, i.e., the potential by the application of cryptocurrency in the real world and the improvement of blockchain technology based on the application requirements. Overall, our study uses multiple complementary scientometric methods to generate a panoramic view of the recent developments in blockchain research. Future research directions and some limitations are discussed.
24 citations
TL;DR: The smart contract as a feature of blockchain technology can be applied to all transactions involving movement of resources namely finance, material and people, which will lead to effective tracking, visibility, security enhancement and cost reduction in the overall business process.
24 citations
TL;DR: How blockchains work and can be utilized to enhance the operation of power distribution systems are introduced and pertinent challenges for applying blockchain technologies to power distribution system challenges are discussed.
24 citations
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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