Blockchain’s Feasibility in Military Data Networks
Communication security is of particular interest to military data networks. A relatively novel approach to network security is blockchain, a cryptographically secured distribution ledger with a decentralized consensus mechanism for data transaction processing. Recent advances in blockchain technology have proposed new techniques for both data validation and trust management, as well as different frameworks for managing dataflow. The purpose of this work is to test the feasibility of different blockchain architectures as applied to military command and control networks. Various architectures are tested through discrete-event simulation and the feasibility is determined based upon a blockchain design’s ability to maintain long-term stable performance at industry standards of throughput, network latency, and security. This work proposes a consortium blockchain architecture with a computationally inexpensive consensus mechanism, one that leverages a Proof-of-Identity (PoI) concept and a reputation management mechanism.
[1] A. Feickert, "Defense Primer: Army Multi-Domain Operations (MDO)", in LexisNexis® Congressional Research Digital Collection, 2020, pp. 1-3.
[2] Maj. K. Nettis, "Multi-Domain Operations: Bridging the Gaps for Dominance, " Wild Blue Yonder, 1 March 2020.
[3] T. T. A. Dinh, R. Liu, M. Zhang, G. Chen, B. C. Ooi and J. Wang, "Untangling Blockchain: A Data Processing View of Blockchain Systems," in IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, vol. 30, no. 7, pp. 1366-1385, 1 July 2018.
[4] M.T. Hammi, B. Hammi, P. Bellot and A. Serhrouchni, "Trust-free systems: A literature review on blockchain technology and trust in the sharing economy," in Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, vol. 29, pp.50-63, 2019.
[5] M. Swan, Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy (Book style), 1st ed., Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly, 2015, pp. 9-21.
[6] W. Mougayar, The Business Blockchain: promise, practice, and application of the next Internet technology (Book style), Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2016, pp. 132-144.
[7] H. Paik, X. Xu, H. M. N. D. Bandara, S. U. Lee and S. K. Lo, "Analysis of Data Management in Blockchain-Based Systems: From Architecture to Governance," in IEEE Access, vol. 7, 2019, pp. 186091-186107.
[8] Blockchain, "Blockchain Charts" (Data repository), Blockchain, 2020 https://www.blockchain.com/charts/.
[9] Etherscan, "The Ethereum Blockchain Explore" (Data repository), Ethereum, 2020. https://etherscan.io/.
[10] Visa Inc., "Visa Acceptance for Retailers" (Company website), Visa, https://usa.visa.com/run-your-business/small-business-tools/retail.html.
[11] V. Morabito, Business Innovation through Blockchain (Book style), Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2017, pp. 34-70.
[12] D. Tapscott and A. Tapscott, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World (Book style), New York, NY: Penguin Random House LLC, 2016, pp. 39-50.
[13] S. Malik, V. Dedeoglu, S. S. Kanhere and R. Jurdak, "TrustChain: Trust Management in Blockchain and IoT Supported Supply Chains," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 184-193, 2019.
[14] T. Salman, R. Jain and L. Gupta, "A Reputation Management Framework for Knowledge-Based and Probabilistic Blockchains," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 520-527, 2019.
[15] S. Linoy, H. Mahdikhani, S. Ray, R. Lu, N. Stakhanova and A. Ghorbani, "Scalable Privacy-Preserving Query Processing over Ethereum Blockchain," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, 2019, pp. 398-404.
[16] A. Davenport and S. Shetty, "Air Gapped Wallet Schemes and Private Key Leakage in Permissioned Blockchain Platforms," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 541-545, 2019.
[17] K. Lei, M. Du, J. Huang and T. Jin, "Groupchain: Towards a Scalable Public Blockchain in Fog Computing of IoT Services Computing," in IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 252-262, 1 March-April 2020.
[18] K. Wang and H. S. Kim, "FastChain: Scaling Blockchain System with Informed Neighbor Selection," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 376-383, 2019.
[19] S. Yang, Z. Chen, L. Cui, M. Xu, Z. Ming and K. Xu, "CoDAG: An Efficient and Compacted DAG-Based Blockchain Protocol," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 314-318, 2019.
[20] K. Tsoulias, G. Palaiokrassas, G. Fragkos, A. Litke and T. A. Varvarigou, "A Graph Model Based Blockchain Implementation for Increasing Performance and Security in Decentralized Ledger Systems," in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 130952-130965, 2020.
[21] H. Desai, M. Kantarcioglu and L. Kagal, "A Hybrid Blockchain Architecture for Privacy-Enabled and Accountable Auctions," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 34-43, 2019.
[22] H. Guo, W. Li, M. Nejad and C. Shen, "Access Control for Electronic Health Records with Hybrid Blockchain-Edge Architecture," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 44-51, 2019.
[23] G. Wang, Z. Shi, M. Nixon and S. Han, "ChainSplitter: Towards Blockchain-Based Industrial IoT Architecture for Supporting Hierarchical Storage," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 166-175, 2019.
[24] S. Latifi, Y. Zhang and L. -C. Cheng, "Blockchain-Based Real Estate Market: One Method for Applying Blockchain Technology in Commercial Real Estate Market," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 528-535, 2019.
[25] U.S. Department of Defense, "Military Units: Army," U.S. Department of Defense, 2021. https://www.defense.gov/Experience/Military-Units/Army/.
[26] YCharts, "Ethereum Average Block Time" (Data repository), Ycharts, 2021. https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_block_time/.
[27] A. Gervais, G. O. Karame, K. Wüst, V. Glykantzis, H. Ritzdorf, Srdjan Capkun, "On the Security and Performance of Proof of Work Blockchains," Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, 2016.
[28] V. Buterin, "On Slow and Fast Block Times," Ethereum Foundation, Bern, Switzerland, 14 September 2015.
[29] S. G. Kwak, J. H. Kim, "Central Limit Theorem: The Cornerstone of Modern Statistics," in Korean Journal of Anesthesiology, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 144-156, 2017.
[30] S. Savage, The Flaw of Averages (Book style), Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2015, pp. 67-77.
[31] X. Yang, W. Li, "A Zero-Knowledge-Proof-based Digital Identity Management Scheme in Blockchain," in Computers & Security, vol. 99, 2020.
[32] L. Chen, L. Xu, N. Shah, Y. Lu, "On Security Analysis of Proof-of-Elapsed-Time (PoET)," in Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems, pp. 282-297, 7 October 2017.
[1] A. Feickert, "Defense Primer: Army Multi-Domain Operations (MDO)", in LexisNexis® Congressional Research Digital Collection, 2020, pp. 1-3.
[2] Maj. K. Nettis, "Multi-Domain Operations: Bridging the Gaps for Dominance, " Wild Blue Yonder, 1 March 2020.
[3] T. T. A. Dinh, R. Liu, M. Zhang, G. Chen, B. C. Ooi and J. Wang, "Untangling Blockchain: A Data Processing View of Blockchain Systems," in IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, vol. 30, no. 7, pp. 1366-1385, 1 July 2018.
[4] M.T. Hammi, B. Hammi, P. Bellot and A. Serhrouchni, "Trust-free systems: A literature review on blockchain technology and trust in the sharing economy," in Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, vol. 29, pp.50-63, 2019.
[5] M. Swan, Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy (Book style), 1st ed., Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly, 2015, pp. 9-21.
[6] W. Mougayar, The Business Blockchain: promise, practice, and application of the next Internet technology (Book style), Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2016, pp. 132-144.
[7] H. Paik, X. Xu, H. M. N. D. Bandara, S. U. Lee and S. K. Lo, "Analysis of Data Management in Blockchain-Based Systems: From Architecture to Governance," in IEEE Access, vol. 7, 2019, pp. 186091-186107.
[8] Blockchain, "Blockchain Charts" (Data repository), Blockchain, 2020 https://www.blockchain.com/charts/.
[9] Etherscan, "The Ethereum Blockchain Explore" (Data repository), Ethereum, 2020. https://etherscan.io/.
[10] Visa Inc., "Visa Acceptance for Retailers" (Company website), Visa, https://usa.visa.com/run-your-business/small-business-tools/retail.html.
[11] V. Morabito, Business Innovation through Blockchain (Book style), Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2017, pp. 34-70.
[12] D. Tapscott and A. Tapscott, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World (Book style), New York, NY: Penguin Random House LLC, 2016, pp. 39-50.
[13] S. Malik, V. Dedeoglu, S. S. Kanhere and R. Jurdak, "TrustChain: Trust Management in Blockchain and IoT Supported Supply Chains," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 184-193, 2019.
[14] T. Salman, R. Jain and L. Gupta, "A Reputation Management Framework for Knowledge-Based and Probabilistic Blockchains," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 520-527, 2019.
[15] S. Linoy, H. Mahdikhani, S. Ray, R. Lu, N. Stakhanova and A. Ghorbani, "Scalable Privacy-Preserving Query Processing over Ethereum Blockchain," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, 2019, pp. 398-404.
[16] A. Davenport and S. Shetty, "Air Gapped Wallet Schemes and Private Key Leakage in Permissioned Blockchain Platforms," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 541-545, 2019.
[17] K. Lei, M. Du, J. Huang and T. Jin, "Groupchain: Towards a Scalable Public Blockchain in Fog Computing of IoT Services Computing," in IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 252-262, 1 March-April 2020.
[18] K. Wang and H. S. Kim, "FastChain: Scaling Blockchain System with Informed Neighbor Selection," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 376-383, 2019.
[19] S. Yang, Z. Chen, L. Cui, M. Xu, Z. Ming and K. Xu, "CoDAG: An Efficient and Compacted DAG-Based Blockchain Protocol," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 314-318, 2019.
[20] K. Tsoulias, G. Palaiokrassas, G. Fragkos, A. Litke and T. A. Varvarigou, "A Graph Model Based Blockchain Implementation for Increasing Performance and Security in Decentralized Ledger Systems," in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 130952-130965, 2020.
[21] H. Desai, M. Kantarcioglu and L. Kagal, "A Hybrid Blockchain Architecture for Privacy-Enabled and Accountable Auctions," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 34-43, 2019.
[22] H. Guo, W. Li, M. Nejad and C. Shen, "Access Control for Electronic Health Records with Hybrid Blockchain-Edge Architecture," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 44-51, 2019.
[23] G. Wang, Z. Shi, M. Nixon and S. Han, "ChainSplitter: Towards Blockchain-Based Industrial IoT Architecture for Supporting Hierarchical Storage," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 166-175, 2019.
[24] S. Latifi, Y. Zhang and L. -C. Cheng, "Blockchain-Based Real Estate Market: One Method for Applying Blockchain Technology in Commercial Real Estate Market," 2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Atlanta, GA, pp. 528-535, 2019.
[25] U.S. Department of Defense, "Military Units: Army," U.S. Department of Defense, 2021. https://www.defense.gov/Experience/Military-Units/Army/.
[26] YCharts, "Ethereum Average Block Time" (Data repository), Ycharts, 2021. https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_block_time/.
[27] A. Gervais, G. O. Karame, K. Wüst, V. Glykantzis, H. Ritzdorf, Srdjan Capkun, "On the Security and Performance of Proof of Work Blockchains," Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, 2016.
[28] V. Buterin, "On Slow and Fast Block Times," Ethereum Foundation, Bern, Switzerland, 14 September 2015.
[29] S. G. Kwak, J. H. Kim, "Central Limit Theorem: The Cornerstone of Modern Statistics," in Korean Journal of Anesthesiology, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 144-156, 2017.
[30] S. Savage, The Flaw of Averages (Book style), Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2015, pp. 67-77.
[31] X. Yang, W. Li, "A Zero-Knowledge-Proof-based Digital Identity Management Scheme in Blockchain," in Computers & Security, vol. 99, 2020.
[32] L. Chen, L. Xu, N. Shah, Y. Lu, "On Security Analysis of Proof-of-Elapsed-Time (PoET)," in Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems, pp. 282-297, 7 October 2017.
@article{"International Journal of Information, Control and Computer Sciences:80224", author = "Brenden M. Shutt and Lubjana Beshaj and Paul L. Goethals and Ambrose Kam", title = "Blockchain’s Feasibility in Military Data Networks", abstract = "Communication security is of particular interest to military data networks. A relatively novel approach to network security is blockchain, a cryptographically secured distribution ledger with a decentralized consensus mechanism for data transaction processing. Recent advances in blockchain technology have proposed new techniques for both data validation and trust management, as well as different frameworks for managing dataflow. The purpose of this work is to test the feasibility of different blockchain architectures as applied to military command and control networks. Various architectures are tested through discrete-event simulation and the feasibility is determined based upon a blockchain design’s ability to maintain long-term stable performance at industry standards of throughput, network latency, and security. This work proposes a consortium blockchain architecture with a computationally inexpensive consensus mechanism, one that leverages a Proof-of-Identity (PoI) concept and a reputation management mechanism.", keywords = "Blockchain, command & control network, discrete-event simulation, reputation management.", volume = "15", number = "4", pages = "98-10", }
