Blockchain — Providing Safety Through Authentication for the Internet of Things
By: Nicolas Malloy
Tags: Security, Safety, Internet of Things, Blockchain, IoT

Blockchain — Providing Safety Through Authentication for the Internet of Things

Will Blockchain Save Us?

Photo by MIT Sloan Management Review

Reliable authentication is a common obstacle for systems participating in the Internet of Things (IoT).

Whether you’re dealing with centralized networks, supply chains, or combat systems the inability to authenticate can be the difference between success and failure or life and death. The use of hashes, Proof of Work (PoW), decentralized P2P networks, and consensus make Blockchain a very safe and secure way to store and maintain data for the IoT.

To successfully tamper with a Blockchain a bad actor would need to first change all the blocks on the chain, then redo the PoW for each of the newly modified blocks, and finally control more than fifty percent of all the nodes on the P2P network. With these security guards in place that is just about impossible to do (Decuyper, 2017). The data on a Blockchain represents the truth and the IoT depends on information like this to function properly. System operability is highly dependent upon seamless transmission/receipt of secure and authentic data. Blockchain meets this need. IoT Industry’s dealing with data or transactions of any kind are likely to be disrupted by use cases based on Blockchain technology.

Safety Related IoT Blockchain Use Cases

Benefits for using Blockchains to solve real world problems include the reduction of time delays and human error. Similarly, Blockchains can be used for monitoring cost, labor demands, waste, and emissions just to name a few. Banking and Financial Services are currently some of the most talked about uses for Blockchain. This is largely due to the popularity that Bitcoin has gained since its introduction but there are other ways that Blockchain is proving to be transformative for industry.

Fraud

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Financial exchanges are made safer and secure through the layered security of hashing, PoW, decentralized P2P networks, and group consensus. Traditional transactions are built upon centralized systems. As a result, they are much more susceptible to inaccuracies because the source of their truth is a single point of failure. In a centralized system, the validity checks are self-contained whereas a decentralized system is not.

A strong use case for fraud prevention using Blockchain is guaranteeing the authenticity of art.

Under normal circumstances this is difficult because authoritative authentication is necessary for the art market to operate effectively and legitimately (Amineddoleh, 2015). But the question stands, who can make those kinds of determinations? Humans inevitably cannot make these decisions on their own, so technology should be incorporated into the review process.

In the art world authentication is segmented into three different categories. Together they form the basis for multi-million-dollar decisions. These categories are as follows:

1. Forensics — examinations help to pinpoint whether a work was made at the time and place that the seller claims or whether the materials post-date an artist

2. Provenance — The chain of ownership from the original artist to the current owner is an important aspect of authentication and is viewed on the art market as persuasive evidence of a work’s authenticity

3. Connoisseurship — one who understands the details, technique, or principles of an art and is competent to act as a critical judge (Maecenas, 2017)

A start-up named Maecenas believes it has come up with the answer, by using the Blockchain to “foolproof” the system. Using Blockchain technology, it has created a non-centralized database of art that verifies each work by assigning it unique authenticity codes. Owners and buyers alike can then use these individual Blockchain codes to validate the authenticity of the pieces and monitor their movement worldwide (Thompson, 2015). Figure 1 depicts the flow of information pertaining to the authentication of art and its eventual safe transaction between a buyer and seller.

Figure 1 Art Authentication Flow Diagram (Maecenas, 2017)