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Trustworthy Management in Decentralized IoT
Application using Blockchain
Bhabendu K. Mohanta1, Soumyashree S. Panda2, Utkalika Satapathy3, Debasish Jena4, Debasis Gountia5
1,2,3,4Department of Computer Science & Engineering, IIIT Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, India, 751003
5Department of Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India, 247667
Email: C116004@iiit-bh.ac.in1, C117011@iiit-bh.ac.in2, A117010@iiit-bh.ac.in3,
debasish@iiit-bh.ac.in4, dgountia@gmail.com5
Abstract—Internet of Things (IoT) as per estimated will con-
nect 50 billion devices by 2020. Since its evolution, IoT technology
provides lots of flexibility to develop and implement any applica-
tion. Most of the application improves the human living standard
and also makes life easy to access and monitoring the things in
real time. Though there exist some security and privacy issues in
IoT system like authentication, computation, data modification,
trust among users. In this paper, we have identified the IoT
application like insurance, supply chain system, smart city and
smart car where trust among associated users is an major issue.
The current centralized system does not provide enough trust
between users. Using Blockchain technology we have shown that
trust issue among users can be managed in a decentralized
way so that information can be traceable and identify/verify
any time. Blockchain has properties like distributed, digitally
share and immutable which enhance security. For Blockchain
implementation, Ethereum platform is used.
Index Terms—IoT, Blockchain, Trust Management, Security,
Privacy, Ethereum.
I. INTRODUCTION
IoT (Internet of Things) is a collocation of sensors, inter-
mediate nodes and processing, and storage system connected
mostly in a wireless way. Since its innovations technology
rapidly used in different applications such as smart city, smart
home, earthquake detection, healthcare system, transportation
system, agricultural filed, etc. In an IoT system, “thing” is
connected to the different environment to get the information
from the environment. The users monitoring this information
using the intelligent device. So the concept of IoT is widely
accepted in both research community as well as an industry
sector. The research community is working on developed
different efficient algorithms and communication system as
well as computing, processing. Similarly, lots of intelligent
devices are developed to sense, forward the information to the
next level. IoT uses various communication standard protocols
and various enabling technology to implement an application
[1]. IoT system architecture is three types which are described
below:
•Centralized IoT: IoT devices are used to collect and
process information with Internet connectivity. When all
the devices are connected to a central server (may be
Cloud) for storage and processing the architecture is
centralized architecture. In this case, there is some issue
like single point failure, latency, and bandwidth issue.
Fig. 1. Internet of Things system model for different application.
•Collaborative IoT: When there is the number of storage
and processing system is more than one and all the
decision are taken by multiple systems is known as
collaborative architecture. In this type of architecture,
multiple points of contact are present which overcome
the single point failure, but it lacks in coordination during
computation and processing.
•Distributed IoT: Internet of Things is used for real-
time processing where processing and computation need
to be done in quick time as well as efficiently. In a
distributed network all the node have ability to participant
in processing and computing. All the processing nodes
are connected to each other. So there will be no single
point failure in this network.
In an IoT system, security and privacy challenges are exist
[2]. Some of the research has addressed the security and
privacy challenges, still lots of work need to be done so that
IoT will be widely accepted by the users. Though authenti-
cation, authorization, access control, integrity, confidentiality
are some of the fundamental security issues exist in the IoT
system. The trust is also one of the major issues in the
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IoT network. The communication between nodes as well the
processing among nodes needs to be transparent so that trust
can be established among all users. In this paper, we have
identified IoT application where trust can be a major issue
and its need to be addressed. Blockchain has the capability to
provide that trust among all the users in the network.
II. BACKGROU ND O F TH E PROB LE M AN D RE LATE D WO RK
Internet of Things has come to a long way since its
innovation. The development of IoT devices and its associated
technologies is growing in rapidly. The application wise IoT
is the current most widely adopted technologies. The IoT
is used to monitoring the environment, control the situation,
even in some critical sector like patient monitoring case,
earthquake detection. Though basic security and privacy issue
are addressed by the different researchers for low-end IoT
devices. Trust management issue id one of the major in some
applications. When different transactions and processing are
done in a network trust management must be maintained.
Due to the heterogeneity of the IoT devices trust is a major
issue, it can be two way of presentation first is trust between
processing nodes for interaction, second is trust in the system
for management and give access control to the users. In the
paper [3], authors describe that trust in IoT system can be
established in three level that is data level, communication
level and data processing level. Similarly in paper [4], authors
explained the trust model for the IoT system and challenges
exist in the trust management. As the IoT devices are low-end
device having low processing power and less memory storage
processing can be done using the concept fog computing [5]
as its provides processing and storage capability. In paper [6]
and [7], authors have explained the trust model for IoT based
market and smart manufacturing system. The trust issue can
be addressed using distributed/decentralized technique. The
security and privacy issues are explained by the authors in
papers [8] in a distributed system. Blockchain has the ability
to provide the trust between users in the IoT application.
A. Motivation
Internet of Things has lots of security and privacy issue
exist in the implementation of an application. The entity
associated with the IoT application needs transparency in the
system. The application like insurance, smart city, smart home
applications, all the associated users must trust each other.
Trust management is one of the main issues. In this paper, the
authors explained trust issue can be solved using Blockchain
Technology.
III. IMPAC T OF TRU ST MANAGEMENT IN IOT
APPLICATION
In an IoT application security issue like authentication,
authorization, DoS attack, man in the middle attack, etc., when
information is shared between entities like supply chain system
where the material is passed through a different point like
manufacture, suppliers, dealers, consumers. In each point of
transfer whatever changes made, it must be available to all
users to make the system trustful. So the trust is a major issue
in IoT applications.
A. IoT Application and Security challenges
IoT has enormous potential for implementing smart appli-
cations such as smart city, smart home, smart transportation,
smart environment monitoring, etc. Till now many IoT based
applications are already developed in a different field. But still
its need some issue to be addressed like scalability, security,
privacy, and trust management.Trust management is an im-
portant issue in IoT. It allows multiple devices and objects to
share their opinions about trustworthiness of their peers. To
reliably transfer the data and to minimize the uncertainty of
service availability in IoT applications, devices must trust each
other.
1) Insurance System: The insurance sector is one of the
most demanding sectors nowadays. As insurance may be
health, vehicle, home, any electronic instrument, there are
many different types of insurance coverage type are exist.
In a traditional system shown in Fig. 2, for health insurance
there is one way of communication. A patient can start the
health cover insurance by register through the hospital or
by directly through an online system. Insurance company
verified the claim insurance and approve accordingly. lastly,
hospital after patient treatment is over put the final money
claim to the insurance company directly. Once the hospital
gets the approval from the insurance company, the patient is
discharged.In traditional system some of the problems are:
•Patient never knows actually how much amount paid by
the insurance company and date and time of released.
•Communication is between mostly two-party these more
than two parties involved.
•There is no transparent way of information communi-
cated.
•There is no trust between the users.
2) Supply Chain System: In supply chain system involves
lots of intermediate point from starting o the delivery point.
Suppose in a drugs supply chain system. The system has a
different entity like manufactures, distributor, transport com-
pany and so on. To trace the drugs at each point is all most
impossible without sharing the information in each step. In a
traditional system, the manufacturer sealed the ordered drugs
and handover to the transport provider. Then the drugs carry
through different medium to the destination. what happens
means any modification or damage done to the drugs is
untraceable. Blockchain system if used to supply chain system
all the transaction and transfer information with date, the
timestamp can be recorded in a block format and can be
accessed by all authorized users making trust robust and
building trust between users.
3) Smart City: In a smart city based on IoT has been
already been developed. The development of smart city con-
sists of smart parking, smart traffic system, smart waste
management, smart grid and so on. The building the smart city
main aim is making better living standards of the people of the
city like easily accessible information, smart monitoring the
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Fig. 2. Traditional insurance claim process.
things. As in the smart city application, lots of different section
involves completing the smart city all need to be coordinated
in a decentralized way. there should not be any central party
control all the things. if the whole system is built using a
central server then there is a high risk of system failure.
Also, the chances of security issue are high. People personal
information need to be protected in such a way that trust can be
built among the users to use the different service provided by
the smart city. This trust and privacy preservation are possible
using Blockchain technology.
B. Blockchain and IoT integration
Since the evolution of IoT technology, the manual or tradi-
tional way of processing information and dealing with com-
putation process has made lots of changes. The technologies
like fog computing and cloud computing with the integration
of IoT is already taken place which makes the IoT application
much more usable than the normal application. In paper [9]
authors, the survey that Blockchain can be implemented in IoT
application. similarly in paper [10] and [11] authors, explained
the trust management with the different service provided by the
IoT. The integration of IoT with Blockchain technology is the
recent development in the research community that is shown
in the paper [12] and [13]. Though both IoT and Blockchain
have their own security [14] and [15] and implementation
challenges still when properly integrate it creates the ideal
platform to develop the application.
Blockchain though started with bitcoin cryptocurrency appli-
cation to transfer money in peer to peer way without the
third party. but the recent development of smart contract [17]
makes Blockchain use in non-financial applications also. As
shown in Fig. 3, a transaction has a different attribute like
hash value, timestamp, nonce. Each transaction is encrypted
through the hash value to make secure. In Fig.4 it is shown
Fig. 3. Blockchain basic transaction details.
Fig. 4. Blockchain mining process and block addition details.
that how a block which is a collection of a valid transaction is
created and added to the existing block. The blocks are added
after the successful mining process. Due to the smart contract
and openly available platform like Ethereum and Hyperledger
integration of IoT and Blockchain is possible which address
trust management issue exists in the traditional based system,
IV. SOLUTION APP ROAC H AN D IMPLEMENTATION USING
BLOCKCHAIN
As explained in section 3, trust management issue in IoT ap-
plication in a traditional way. In the implementation purpose,
we have considered the insurance sector as an example. As
shown in Fig.5 each member of the system connected to the
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Fig. 5. Blockchain basic transaction details.
Blockchain system. Patient, Insurance company and Hospital
can register to the Blockchain network using the authentication
process in the Ethereum platform.
The smart contract has been programmed in solidity, which
is an object-oriented programming language for writing the
condition for the user. The smart contract is deployed in the
Ethereum Blockchain network. The smart contract is an auto-
executable code which runs automatically when the input value
matches with the condition and its trigger the corresponding
events.
For Implementation purpose, one high-end system is used to
create the Ethereum platform. Using the unique address from
the Ethereum platform three nodes are created like a patient,
insurance, and hospital. The smart contract for each of these
three entities is written and deployed in the Ethereum platform.
whatever transaction is done between the entity are recorded
using the Blockchain technology and share among all the user
making system trust. Each of the transaction is send using
the digital signature and public key and private key concept
to make the system tamper-proof. Each of the transaction is
validated using the digital signature. Using the Blockchain
technology and Ethereum platform with the help of smart
contract in an IoT application trust can be established among
all the entities.
V. CONCLUSION AND FU TU RE W OR K
Internet of Things has widely used in the different ap-
plications area. The IoT provides lots of flexibility in and
real-time monitoring of the system. Though lots of research
has been done on the IoT application development. The
application architecture can be a centralized system or it can
be a decentralized system. The security issue exists of the
current system are denying the application to be used widely.
One of the primary issues is trust among the entity associated
Fig. 6. Environment for Ethereum Blockchain Decentralized system.
with the application. In this paper, we have identified some
of the application areas where trust is a major issue among
users. We have proposed the solution using the concept of
Blockchain technology which provides trust among all the
associated nodes. All the transactions are digitally stored and
shared among all the associated nodes making the system more
transparent. Blockchain also uses hashing and digital signature
concept as well as the authentication process of the node, so
it maintain the security and privacy of the users. In the future,
we want to address the other security issues exist like in IoT
system using Blockchain technology.
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