Econledger: A proof-of-ENF consensus based lightweight distributed ledger for IoVT networks

Abstract

The rapid advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) and wide deployment of Internet of Video Things (IoVT) enable situation awareness (SAW). The robustness and security of IoVT systems are essential for a sustainable urban environment. While blockchain technology has shown great potential in enabling trust-free and decentralized security mechanisms, directly embedding cryptocurrency oriented blockchain schemes into resource-constrained Internet of Video Things (IoVT) networks at the edge is not feasible. By leveraging Electrical Network Frequency (ENF) signals extracted from multimedia recordings as region-of-recording proofs, this paper proposes EconLedger, an ENF-based consensus mechanism that enables secure and lightweight distributed ledgers for small-scale IoVT edge networks. The proposed consensus mechanism relies on a novel Proof-of-ENF (PoENF) algorithm where a validator is qualified to generate a new block if and only if a proper ENF-containing multimedia signal proof is produced within the current round. The decentralized database (DDB) is adopted in order to guarantee efficiency and resilience of raw ENF proofs on the off-chain storage. A proof-of-concept prototype is developed and tested in a physical IoVT network environment. The experimental results validated the feasibility of the proposed EconLedger to provide a trust-free and partially decentralized security infrastructure for IoVT edge networks.