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.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: This research develops a framework to guide the implementation of Blockchain-based LCA and proposes a system architecture that integrates the use of Blockchain, IoT, and big data analytics and visualization.
Abstract: Life cycle assessment (LCA) is widely used for assessing the environmental impacts of a product or service. Collecting reliable data is a major challenge in LCA due to the complexities involved in the tracking and quantifying inputs and outputs at multiple supply chain stages. Blockchain technology offers an ideal solution to overcome the challenge in sustainable supply chain management. Its use in combination with internet-of-things (IoT) and big data analytics and visualization can help organizations achieve operational excellence in conducting LCA for improving supply chain sustainability. This research develops a framework to guide the implementation of Blockchain-based LCA. It proposes a system architecture that integrates the use of Blockchain, IoT, and big data analytics and visualization. The proposed implementation framework and system architecture were validated by practitioners who were experienced with Blockchain applications. The research also analyzes system implementation costs and discusses potential issues and solutions, as well as managerial and policy implications.
149 citations
TL;DR: This work considers ten technological enablers, including besides the most cited Big Data, Internet of Things, and Cloud Computing, also others more rarely considered as Fog and Mobile Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, Robotics, down to the often overlooked, very recent, or taken for granted Open-Source Software, Blockchain, and the Internet.
Abstract: A new industrial revolution is undergoing, based on a number of technological paradigms. The will to foster and guide this phenomenon has been summarized in the expression “Industry 4.0” (I4.0). Initiatives under this term share the vision that many key technologies underlying Cyber-Physical Systems and Big Data Analytics are converging to a new distributed, highly automated, and highly dynamic production network , and that this process needs regulatory and cultural advancements to effectively and timely develop. In this work, we focus on the technological aspect only, highlighting the unprecedented complexity of I4.0 emerging from the scientific literature. While previous works have focused on one or up to four related enablers, we consider ten technological enablers, including besides the most cited Big Data, Internet of Things, and Cloud Computing, also others more rarely considered as Fog and Mobile Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, Robotics, down to the often overlooked, very recent, or taken for granted Open-Source Software, Blockchain, and the Internet. For each we explore the main characteristics in relation to I4.0 and its interdependencies with other enablers. Finally we provide a detailed analysis of challenges in leveraging each of the enablers in I4.0, evidencing possible roadblocks to be overcome and pointing at possible future directions of research. Our goal is to provide a reference for the experts in some of the technological fields involved, for a reconnaissance of integration and hybridization possibilities with other fields in the endeavor of I4.0, as well as for the laymen, for a high-level grasp of the variety (and often deep history) of the scientific research backing I4.0.
149 citations
Cites background from "Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..."
...Most examples pertain to IoT scenarios [294], including (i) secure and distributed management of firmware/software update for...
[...]
..., make updates to the distributed data structure) even if they do not trust each other, and also in absence of a trusted intermediary, still remaining confident that the transaction is agreed upon by the members [294]....
[...]
148 citations
TL;DR: This paper presents the first review of blockchain technology and delves into its value in SCM, which will help researchers in identifying the areas where blockchain is the most desirable and can be implemented.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on blockchain technology, present some trends and consider its potential value in supply chain management (SCM).,Papers that contained the word “blockchain” in their titles, keywords or abstracts were selected for conducting trend analyses.,The blockchain technology is rapidly making inroads in many industries and there is tremendous potential to eliminate intermediaries and to make SCM more efficient.,This analysis is limited to 299 papers from the EBSCO database through December 2018.,This paper highlights the imperative role of blockchain technology that has created a discourse in the world of innovation and technology. This work will help academics to further the understanding of blockchain technology.,Blockchain technology will provide transparency to consumers.,This paper presents the first review of blockchain technology and delves into its value in SCM. This work will help researchers in identifying the areas where blockchain is the most desirable and can be implemented.
148 citations
TL;DR: The extensive experiments show that the proposed model performs better than many traditional classification models and can achieve high accuracy for practical use, and is proposed to build a uniform platform to evaluate and monitor every created smart contract for early warning of scams.
Abstract: Blockchain technology becomes increasingly popular. It also attracts scams, for example, a Ponzi scheme, a classic fraud, has been found making a notable amount of money on Blockchain, which has a very negative impact. To help to deal with this issue and to provide reusable research data sets for future research, this paper collects real-world samples and proposes an approach to detect Ponzi schemes implemented as smart contracts (i.e., smart Ponzi schemes) on the blockchain. First, 200 smart Ponzi schemes are obtained by manually checking more than 3,000 open source smart contracts on the Ethereum platform. Then, two kinds of features are extracted from the transaction history and operation codes of the smart contracts. Finally, a classification model is presented to detect smart Ponzi schemes. The extensive experiments show that the proposed model performs better than many traditional classification models and can achieve high accuracy for practical use. By using the proposed approach, we estimate that there are more than 500 smart Ponzi schemes running on Ethereum. Based on these results, we propose to build a uniform platform to evaluate and monitor every created smart contract for early warning of scams.
148 citations
Cites background from "Blockchains and Smart Contracts for..."
...Internet of Things (IoT) [10], [30], and smart traveling [31]....
[...]
References
More filters
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
[...]
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...
[...]
...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....
[...]
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....
[...]
...Tendermint vs PBFT—Tendermint....
[...]
...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]....
[...]
...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]....
[...]
...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....
[...]
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]....
[...]