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Ad Hoc Networks

Volume 110, 1 January 2021, 102321
Ad Hoc Networks

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Blockchain incentivized data forwarding in MANETs: Strategies and challenges

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adhoc.2020.102321Get rights and content

Abstract

Recently, blockchain trustless properties started to be investigated to design cooperation enforcement mechanisms in many systems. This paper presents a comprehensive and detailed review of works on blockchain-enabled data forwarding incentives for multi-hop MANETs. We contextualize the problem of selfish misbehavior in networks composed of routers that are property of different participants: community, D2D, and vehicular networks, including DTN alternatives. We discuss how uncooperative behavior from multiple device owners leads to unreliable communication affecting trust in MANETs. We summarize pre-blockchain incentive mechanisms for data forwarding, classified as credit-based and reputation-based, and outline game-theoretic approaches. We discuss blockchain features useful for data forwarding incentives in multi-hop MANETs, detailing off-chain mechanisms that have been applied in the state-of-the-art. We describe the critical points in the state-of-the-art based on research papers, patents, and products. Finally, we discuss and summarize existing strategies and challenges for further research.

Introduction

Specific mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) have been proposed to expand network coverage to regions that conventional networks cannot reach. Some examples of MANETs are community networks, device-to-device (D2D) networks, and vehicular networks (VANET). The main goal of community networks [1], [2], [3] is to provide Internet access to low-income and remote areas, where commercial service providers and public policies do not reach. D2D networks [4] enable wireless communication among personal devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) as a complement to infrastructured networks. VANETs [5] allow communication along roads using vehicles as relays. D2D and VANET could also be designed as Delay-Tolerant Networks (DTN) [6] that admit long communication delays.

Those MANETs require cooperative sharing of resources to enable reliable data forwarding. However, misbehaved nodes could undermine network reliability by acting selfishly, taking advantage of cooperation from other devices, and avoiding making their resources available. This behavior is also known as free-riding.

There is plenty of research in mechanisms that aim to prevent free-riding as shown in the survey from Jedari et al. [7]. Most of them adopt credit-based incentives or trust-building reputation mechanisms. Game-theoretic modeling has also been investigated in order to maximize data delivery ratio among participants. Credit-based mechanisms require tamper-resistant hardware modules or trusted third-parties. Reputation-based mechanisms are prone to second-order free-riding [8], which consists of devices that avoid contributing to the reputation mechanism.

Recently, blockchains started to be adopted to provide financial compensation for collaborative participants in MANETs. Blockchains have trustless properties (i.e., they achieve dependable and secure properties without the need for trusted third-parties) [9] that apply to incentive mechanisms in MANETs. These properties could allow collaborative nodes to join and leave MANETs without prior trust assumptions and to be rewarded according to their cooperation. This work aims to gather the state-of-the-art in multi-hop incentivized MANETs that adopt blockchains for incentives in data forwarding, outline their strategies, and discuss their challenges. Our contributions are: an overview of the state-of-the-art in blockchain-based mechanisms for incentives in data forwarding in multi-hop MANETs; outline their strategies and challenges; discuss directions for further research to advance in this topic.

After this introduction, we organize this paper as shown in the roadmap of Fig. 1. Section 2 contextualizes reliability and trust issues due to the free-riding problem in data forwarding in multi-hop MANETs. Section 3 shows pre-blockchain incentive mechanisms for this problem proposed in the literature. Section 4 presents an overview of blockchain concepts. Section 5 is a review of the state-of-the-art consisting of research papers, products, and patents. Section 6 is a discussion of the incentive strategies found in the state-of-the-art and open challenges. Finally, Section 7 presents our conclusion.

Section snippets

Ownership, reliability and trust in MANETs

Other works review the problem of cooperation in MANETs in a user-centric (or human-centric) perspective [7], [10]. We consider the ownership of devices and their relationship with reliability in a more general and precise viewpoint. We analyze the selfish misbehavior in MANETs according to how participants (economic agents as individuals or organizations) allocate their network resources to cooperate ith other participants.

This section characterizes network elements that present selfish

Incentive mechanisms in MANETs

An incentive mechanism can be defined as a system rule whose goal is to induce participants to act in a specific way. Collaboration could be achieved with rewards to stimulate cooperation or punishments to discourage misbehavior. For instance, in a market, a payment could serve as an incentive, working as a reward, whenever a participant offers a service or sells a good, and as a punishment, every time a participant consumes a good or service.

In order to mitigate selfish misbehavior in MANETs,

Overview of blockchains

Blockchains are distributed databases organized as sequential chains of blocks that store transactions, as illustrated in Fig. 9. The figure exemplifies transactions secured by a Merkle tree in each block. Nodes achieve consensus for new block contents in a trustless approach [9], eliminating the need to trust in third-parties. Once a new block of transactions is appended to the blockchain, it has a very low probability of being invalidated.

Bitcoin was the pioneer blockchain that proposed a

Blockchain incentivized data forwarding in MANETs

MANETs are also starting to adopt cryptocurrencies to improve network connectivity trust without the need for trust in third-parties (trustless). Blockchain features are suitable for scenarios that trust is difficult to establish or maintain, such as multi-hop MANETs with routers that are property of different participants. In Section 3.1, we outlined conventional reputation-based, credit-based, and game theory-based incentive mechanisms for cooperation in multi-hop MANETs and their

Strategies and challenges

In the previous section, we outlined key points of the state-of-the-art and blockchain features that could be readily be applied to their forwarding incentive mechanisms. This section analyzes and compares strategies from the works in the state-of-the-art, their advantages, limitations, and challenges. Fig. 12 classifies the state-of-the-art works designed to specific MANETs, including DTN alternatives, as shown in Section 2.3.

Fig. 13 illustrates the discussion of this section with an example

Conclusion

This paper presented a comprehensive and detailed review of recent works on blockchain-enabled data forwarding incentives for multi-hop MANETs, summarized in Table 7. First, we contextualized selfish misbehavior in specific types of MANETs and why it affects data delivery reliability. We also summarized pre-blockchain incentive mechanisms that stimulate cooperative behavior and presented an overview of blockchain features that could support incentive mechanisms. In the state-of-the-art review,

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Caciano Machado is a Ph.D. candidate at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), and network administrator at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), in Brazil. He received both his B.Sc. (2005) and his M.Sc. (2010) in Computer Science at UFRGS. He has also worked as a university professor of computer network disciplines and as a developer of networking protocols for embedded systems in telecom equipment manufacturers. His research interests are computer networks,

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    Caciano Machado is a Ph.D. candidate at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), and network administrator at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), in Brazil. He received both his B.Sc. (2005) and his M.Sc. (2010) in Computer Science at UFRGS. He has also worked as a university professor of computer network disciplines and as a developer of networking protocols for embedded systems in telecom equipment manufacturers. His research interests are computer networks, distributed systems, and computer security. Currently, he focuses on the design of blockchain-based incentive mechanisms for network protocols and in community networks deployment in underserved communities.

    Carla Merkle Westphall is Associate Professor (since 2007) in the Department of Informatics and Statistics at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. She acts as a security researcher of the Network and Management Laboratory. She is advisor of Ph.D. and Master students in the Graduate Program in Computer Science at Federal University of Santa Catarina. Carla received a Doctor degree in the subject of Information Security in 2000. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in 1994 and a M.Sc. degree in 1996, both in Computer Science at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. She is a committee member of security conferences and journals. Her research interests include distributed systems security, computer networks, internet of things, identity management, blockchain and new generation networks.

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