A Blockchain-Based Multi-Factor Authentication Model for a Cloud-Enabled Internet of Vehicles.

Continuous and emerging advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have enabled Internet-of-Things (IoT)-to-Cloud applications to be induced by data pipelines and Edge Intelligence-based architectures. Advanced vehicular networks greatly benefit from these architectures due to the implicit functionalities that are focused on realizing the Internet of Vehicle (IoV) vision. However, IoV is susceptible to attacks, where adversaries can easily exploit existing vulnerabilities. Several attacks may succeed due to inadequate or ineffective authentication techniques. Hence, there is a timely need for hardening the authentication process through cutting-edge access control mechanisms. This paper proposes a Blockchain-based Multi-Factor authentication model that uses an embedded Digital Signature (MFBC_eDS) for vehicular clouds and Cloud-enabled IoV. Our proposed MFBC_eDS model consists of a scheme that integrates the Security Assertion Mark-up Language (SAML) to the Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities for a connected edge to cloud ecosystem. MFBC_eDS draws an essential comparison with the baseline authentication scheme suggested by Karla and Sood. Based on the foundations of Karla and Sood's scheme, an embedded Probabilistic Polynomial-Time Algorithm (ePPTA) and an additional Hash function for the Pi generated during Karla and Sood's authentication were proposed and discussed. The preliminary analysis of the proposition shows that the approach is more suitable to counter major adversarial attacks in an IoV-centered environment based on the Dolev-Yao adversarial model while satisfying aspects of the Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA) triad

ESIA: An Efficient and Stable Identity Authentication for Internet of Vehicles

Decentralized, tamper-proof blockchain is regarded as a solution to a challenging authentication issue in the Internet of Vehicles (IoVs). However, the consensus time and communication overhead of blockchain increase significantly as the number of vehicles connected to the blockchain. To address this issue, vehicular fog computing has been introduced to improve efficiency. However, existing studies ignore several key factors such as the number of vehicles in the fog computing system, which can impact the consensus communication overhead. Meanwhile, there is no comprehensive study on the stability of vehicular fog composition. The vehicle movement will lead to dynamic changes in fog. If the composition of vehicular fog is unstable, the blockchain formed by this fog computing system will be unstable, which can affect the consensus efficiency. With the above considerations, we propose an efficient and stable identity authentication (ESIA) empowered by hierarchical blockchain and fog computing. By grouping vehicles efficiently, ESIA has low communication complexity and achieves high stability. Moreover, to enhance the consensus security of the hierarchical blockchain, the consensus process is from the bottom layer to the up layer (bottom-up), which we call B2UHChain. Through theoretical analysis and simulation verification, our scheme achieves the design goals of high efficiency and stability while significantly improving the IoV scalability to the power of 1.5 (^1.5) under similar security to a single-layer blockchain. In addition, ESIA has less communication and computation overhead, lower latency, and higher throughput than other baseline authentication schemes

Integration of Blockchain and Auction Models: A Survey, Some Applications, and Challenges

In recent years, blockchain has gained widespread attention as an emerging technology for decentralization, transparency, and immutability in advancing online activities over public networks. As an essential market process, auctions have been well studied and applied in many business fields due to their efficiency and contributions to fair trade. Complementary features between blockchain and auction models trigger a great potential for research and innovation. On the one hand, the decentralized nature of blockchain can provide a trustworthy, secure, and cost-effective mechanism to manage the auction process; on the other hand, auction models can be utilized to design incentive and consensus protocols in blockchain architectures. These opportunities have attracted enormous research and innovation activities in both academia and industry; however, there is a lack of an in-depth review of existing solutions and achievements. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of these two research topics. We review the existing solutions for integrating blockchain and auction models, with some application-oriented taxonomies generated. Additionally, we highlight some open research challenges and future directions towards integrated blockchain-auction models

Proof-of-Stake Consensus Mechanisms for Future Blockchain Networks: Fundamentals, Applications and Opportunities

© 2013 IEEE. The rapid development of blockchain technology and their numerous emerging applications has received huge attention in recent years. The distributed consensus mechanism is the backbone of a blockchain network. It plays a key role in ensuring the network's security, integrity, and performance. Most current blockchain networks have been deploying the proof-of-work consensus mechanisms, in which the consensus is reached through intensive mining processes. However, this mechanism has several limitations, e.g., energy inefficiency, delay, and vulnerable to security threats. To overcome these problems, a new consensus mechanism has been developed recently, namely proof of stake, which enables to achieve the consensus via proving the stake ownership. This mechanism is expected to become a cutting-edge technology for future blockchain networks. This paper is dedicated to investigating proof-of-stake mechanisms, from fundamental knowledge to advanced proof-of-stake-based protocols along with performance analysis, e.g., energy consumption, delay, and security, as well as their promising applications, particularly in the field of Internet of Vehicles. The formation of stake pools and their effects on the network stake distribution are also analyzed and simulated. The results show that the ratio between the block reward and the total network stake has a significant impact on the decentralization of the network. Technical challenges and potential solutions are also discussed