A Blockchain-Based Access Control Solution for IoT

Abstract

This paper proposes a security framework for Internet of Things (IoT) based on blockchain. The solution provides the two features: (1) Access control for IoT devices, which allows users to pay a fee to the device’s owner to access the device for a certain period of time. When the access time expires, the connection will automatically be denied by a proxy of the owner; And (2) Decentralized storage service, providing storage space for IoT data. Device owners have to pay for the system to rent storage space. The total amount of payment depends on the size of the data and storage time. The stored data on the storage system are  automatically discarded when the storage time has expired. We also present a mechanism for privacy-preserving data sharing on peer-to-peer network between owners and the storage system. We use blockchain technology to manage IoT devices, access information, and data storage information. The Proof of Authentication consensus is used to provide a lightweight block verification. To store data of IoT devices, we use the interplanetary file system (IPFS)
which is a peer-to-peer distributed file system. Our solution provides flexibility in time-based access control comparison with other blockchain-based access control solutions