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The Internet Blockchain: A Distributed, Tamper-Resistant Transaction Framework for the Internet

Published: 09 November 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Existing security mechanisms for managing the Internet infrastructural resources like IP addresses, AS numbers, BGP advertisements and DNS mappings rely on a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that can be potentially compromised by state actors and Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Ideally the Internet infrastructure needs a distributed and tamper-resistant resource management framework which cannot be subverted by any single entity. A secure, distributed ledger enables such a mechanism and the blockchain is the best known example of distributed ledgers.
In this paper, we propose the use of a blockchain based mechanism to secure the Internet BGP and DNS infrastructure. While the blockchain has scaling issues to be overcome, the key advantages of such an approach include the elimination of any PKI-like root of trust, a verifiable and distributed transaction history log, multi-signature based authorizations for enhanced security, easy extensibility and scriptable programmability to secure new types of Internet resources and potential for a built in cryptocurrency. A tamper resistant DNS infrastructure also ensures that it is not possible for the application level PKI to spoof HTTPS traffic.

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cover image ACM Conferences
HotNets '16: Proceedings of the 15th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks
November 2016
217 pages
ISBN:9781450346610
DOI:10.1145/3005745
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 09 November 2016

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Author Tags

  1. BGPSec
  2. Blockchain
  3. DNSSEC
  4. Security

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HotNets '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 30 of 108 submissions, 28%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 110 of 460 submissions, 24%

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  • (2024)The Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI): A Survey on Measurements and Future ProspectsIEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management10.1109/TNSM.2023.332745521:2(2353-2373)Online publication date: Apr-2024
  • (2024)Analysis on the Comprehensive Evaluation of a Trustworthy Block Chain-Based T 2 DNS Prototype2024 1st International Conference on Sustainable Computing and Integrated Communication in Changing Landscape of AI (ICSCAI)10.1109/ICSCAI61790.2024.10866111(1-5)Online publication date: 4-Jul-2024
  • (2024)Enabling DNS Security through Permissioned Blockchain2024 International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies (ICICT)10.1109/ICICT60155.2024.10544517(1623-1631)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2024
  • (2024)A survey on various security protocols of edge computingThe Journal of Supercomputing10.1007/s11227-024-06678-681:1Online publication date: 18-Dec-2024
  • (2024)Loft: An Architecture for Lifetime Management of Privacy Data in Service CooperationUbiquitous Security10.1007/978-981-97-1274-8_17(255-273)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2024
  • (2023)Modeling and Analysis of Proof-Based Strategies for Distributed Consensus in Blockchain-Based Peer-to-Peer NetworksSustainability10.3390/su1502147815:2(1478)Online publication date: 12-Jan-2023
  • (2023)Verifiable Bloom filter (VBF): accelerate the query and proof of nonexistent data in a blockchainSCIENTIA SINICA Informationis10.1360/SSI-2023-0048Online publication date: 12-Dec-2023
  • (2023)Securing Domain Name Systems with Blockchain2023 Fourth International Conference on Intelligent Data Science Technologies and Applications (IDSTA)10.1109/IDSTA58916.2023.10317833(48-53)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2023
  • (2023)FlyDB: Query Optimization of Blockchain System Based on Hybrid Storage Architecture2023 4th International Seminar on Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Information Technology (AINIT)10.1109/AINIT59027.2023.10212824(233-237)Online publication date: 16-Jun-2023
  • (2023)Blockchain Integration for IoT-Enabled V2X Communications: A Comprehensive Survey, Security Issues and ChallengesIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2023.328184411(54476-54494)Online publication date: 2023
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