A Trust and Reputation System for IoT Exploiting Distributed Ledger Technology

TL;DR

This paper proposes a scalable distributed ledger combining Tangle and Blockchain to establish a Trust and Reputation System for IoT, addressing current limitations in scalability and security for large IoT networks.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hybrid distributed ledger framework that enhances scalability and security for IoT trust and reputation management.

Findings

Handles large IoT transaction volumes effectively

Supports low power IoT devices joining easily

Mitigates threats like whitewashing attacks

Abstract

The advent of Bitcoin, and consequently Blockchain, has ushered in a new era of decentralization. Blockchain enables mutually distrusting entities to work collaboratively to attain a common objective. However, current Blockchain technologies lack scalability, which limits their use in Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Many devices on the Internet have the computational and communication capabilities to facilitate decision-making. These devices will soon be a 50 billion node network. Furthermore, new IoT business models such as Sensor-as-a-Service (SaaS) require a robust Trust and Reputation System (TRS). In this paper, we introduce an innovative distributed ledger combining Tangle and Blockchain as a TRS framework for IoT. The combination of Tangle and Blockchain provides maintainability of the former and scalability of the latter. The proposed ledger can handle large numbers of IoT device transactions and facilitates low power nodes joining and contributing. Employing a distributed ledger mitigates many threats, such as whitewashing attacks. Along with combining payments and rating protocols, the proposed approach provides cleaner data to the upper layer reputation algorithm.