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A Blockchain-Based Audit Mechanism for Trust and Integrity in IoT-Fog Environments

Ismael Martinez, Abdelhakim Senhaji Hafid, Michel Gendreau

TL;DR

The paper tackles the challenge of secure, trustworthy IoT-fog collaboration by proposing FISIE, a blockchain-based framework that unifies mutual authentication, fog service monetization, and integrity auditing under a single smart-contract system. It introduces the IIMSC smart contract architecture, leveraging ECC for secure on-chain/off-chain interactions, ring signatures for covert oracle audits, and a robust penalty/incentive mechanism to promote fog honesty. The authors provide a detailed design of identity, payment, and integrity modules, along with a simulation study comparing auditing strategies and their impact on system integrity and cost. The work presents a practical path toward tamper-resistant, low-latency IoT-fog ecosystems suitable for smart cities, with extensibility to other blockchain platforms and scalability approaches.

Abstract

The full realization of smart city technology is dependent on the secure and honest collaboration between IoT applications and edge-computing. In particular, resource constrained IoT devices may rely on fog-computing to alleviate the computing load of IoT tasks. Mutual authentication is needed between IoT and fog to preserve IoT data security, and monetization of fog services is needed to promote the fog service ecosystem. However, there is no guarantee that fog nodes will always respond to IoT requests correctly, either intentionally or accidentally. In the public decentralized IoT-fog environment, it is crucial to enforce integrity among fog nodes. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based system that 1) streamlines the mutual authentication service monetization between IoT and fog, 2) verifies the integrity of fog nodes via service audits, and 3) discourages malicious activity and promotes honesty among fog nodes through incentives and penalties.

A Blockchain-Based Audit Mechanism for Trust and Integrity in IoT-Fog Environments

TL;DR

The paper tackles the challenge of secure, trustworthy IoT-fog collaboration by proposing FISIE, a blockchain-based framework that unifies mutual authentication, fog service monetization, and integrity auditing under a single smart-contract system. It introduces the IIMSC smart contract architecture, leveraging ECC for secure on-chain/off-chain interactions, ring signatures for covert oracle audits, and a robust penalty/incentive mechanism to promote fog honesty. The authors provide a detailed design of identity, payment, and integrity modules, along with a simulation study comparing auditing strategies and their impact on system integrity and cost. The work presents a practical path toward tamper-resistant, low-latency IoT-fog ecosystems suitable for smart cities, with extensibility to other blockchain platforms and scalability approaches.

Abstract

The full realization of smart city technology is dependent on the secure and honest collaboration between IoT applications and edge-computing. In particular, resource constrained IoT devices may rely on fog-computing to alleviate the computing load of IoT tasks. Mutual authentication is needed between IoT and fog to preserve IoT data security, and monetization of fog services is needed to promote the fog service ecosystem. However, there is no guarantee that fog nodes will always respond to IoT requests correctly, either intentionally or accidentally. In the public decentralized IoT-fog environment, it is crucial to enforce integrity among fog nodes. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based system that 1) streamlines the mutual authentication service monetization between IoT and fog, 2) verifies the integrity of fog nodes via service audits, and 3) discourages malicious activity and promotes honesty among fog nodes through incentives and penalties.
Paper Structure (74 sections, 4 equations, 6 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 74 sections, 4 equations, 6 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. IoT-fog security
  4. Authorization
  5. Authentication
  6. Data auditing of Fog
  7. Blockchain-based Monetization
  8. Blockchain-fog integration
  9. Summary of Reviewed Literature
  10. FISIE System Overview
  11. Identity Management
  12. Payment Management
  13. Integrity Verification
  14. Penalty & Incentive Mechanisms
  15. Domain Background & Configurations
  16. ...and 59 more sections

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: The main objectives of the FISIE system is to use a blockchain smart contract to 1) facilitate authentication and service and payment between IoT devicesand fog nodes, and 2) enforce service integrity among fog nodes.
  • Figure 2: The mutual authentication process. Recall, every function takes a signature, from which the associated public key is recovered.
  • Figure 3: The IoT-fog processing and payment workflow.
  • Figure 4: A ring signature, zero-knowledge proof of membership, hides the identity of the oracle among IoT.
  • Figure 5: The means and variances of auditing costs necessary to expel all malicious nodes.
  • ...and 1 more figures