BLOWN: A Blockchain Protocol for Single-Hop Wireless Networks under Adversarial SINR

TL;DR

This paper introduces BLOWN, a blockchain protocol tailored for single-hop wireless networks that ensures security and robustness against adversarial attacks, leveraging wireless communication properties for consensus.

Contribution

It proposes a novel permissioned blockchain protocol, BLOWN, with a new consensus mechanism called Proof-of-Channel, specifically designed for resource-constrained wireless networks under adversarial conditions.

Findings

BLOWN achieves security properties like persistence and liveness.

It effectively counters jamming, double-spending, and Sybil attacks.

Simulation results validate its robustness and security in wireless environments.

Abstract

Known as a distributed ledger technology (DLT), blockchain has attracted much attention due to its properties such as decentralization, security, immutability and transparency, and its potential of servicing as an infrastructure for various applications. Blockchain can empower wireless networks with identity management, data integrity, access control, and high-level security. However, previous studies on blockchain-enabled wireless networks mostly focus on proposing architectures or building systems with popular blockchain protocols. Nevertheless, such existing protocols have obvious shortcomings when adopted in wireless networks where nodes may have limited physical resources, may fall short of well-established reliable channels, or may suffer from variable bandwidths impacted by environments or jamming attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel consensus protocol named Proof-of-Channel (PoC) leveraging the natural properties of wireless communications, and develop a permissioned BLOWN protocol (BLOckchain protocol for Wireless Networks) for single-hop wireless networks under an adversarial SINR model. We formalize BLOWN with the universal composition framework and prove its security properties, namely persistence and liveness, as well as its strengths in countering against adversarial jamming, double-spending, and Sybil attacks, which are also demonstrated by extensive simulation studies.