Hop-by-hop Accounting and Rewards for Packet dIspAtching

TL;DR

HARPIA introduces a decentralized, incentive-based system for community networks that discourages free-riding by using distributed accounting and blockchain settlement, without relying on trusted third parties.

Contribution

It proposes a novel distributed accounting scheme and smart contract-based settlement for incentivizing cooperation in community networks, avoiding trusted third-party dependencies.

Findings

Suitable for networks with up to 64 routers

Uses Ethereum smart contracts for settlement

Effective in preventing free-riding behaviors

Abstract

Community networks are prone to free-riders, i.e., participants who take advantage of cooperation from others' routers but do not contribute reciprocally. In this paper, we present HARPIA, a system for credit-based incentive mechanisms for data forwarding in community networks aimed to prevent selfish behavior. HARPIA does not require a trusted third-party or tamper-resistant security modules as in other incentive mechanisms. Instead, it uses a distributed accounting scheme (DPIFA) to estimate the balance of data forwarding contribution and consumption of each network router and settle correspondent cryptocurrency debts on an Ethereum smart contract. On-chain settlement transactions are performed every HARPIA cycle (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly) and must be validated by at least m-of-n network routers using a multi-signature scheme (MuSig). We also realized a performance evaluation, security threat assessment, and cryptocurrency costs estimation. Results show that our proposal is suitable for community networks with up to 64 infrastructure routers under specific m-of-n MuSig thresholds.