PPTP: Price-based Path-specified Transport Protocol for Named Data Network using Blockchain

TL;DR

This paper proposes PPTP, a blockchain-based incentive protocol for Named Data Networks that encourages autonomous nodes to forward packets by using a price-based system, aiming to improve multi-hop ad-hoc networking.

Contribution

It introduces a novel price-based transport protocol for NDN that leverages blockchain for incentivizing packet forwarding among autonomous nodes.

Findings

Design principles and planned functions of PPTP are presented.

Relation of PPTP to existing blockchain networking solutions is discussed.

PPTP aims to address incentives for packet forwarding in NDN.

Abstract

Serving as a potential future Internet architecture, Named Data Network (NDN) offers superior information-centric architectural support for mobile ad-hoc networking. Using NDN as an underlying protocol, end-user devices (e.g. IoT device and smart phone) formulate a multi-hop (mesh) network, in which certain devices play a role of forwarding packets for others and/or act as gateways to access the Internet. Nevertheless, an autonomous (selfish) node in an ad-hoc network has two disincentives for forwarding packets for others: energy expenditure and possible delays for its own data. This paper introduces Price-based Path-specified Transport Protocol (PPT) for NDN, using blockchain as a payment platform to support money transfers between autonomous nodes thus to incentivise packet forwarding. In PPTP, routers advertise their expected prices for packet forwarding and consumers estimate the costs and select the appropriate paths for content downloading. PPTP is still an on-going project therefore this paper will present the design principle and planed functions, and show how PPTP are related to other existing blockchain-based networking solutions.