Blockchain-Based Cross-Domain Authentication With Dynamic Domain Participation in IoT

Deyu Luo, Gang Sun, Hongfang Yu, Mohsen Guizani

Abstract: In the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain-based cross-domain authentication schemes can effectively establish trust and share data across different administrative domains. However, current blockchain-based cross-domain authentication solutions often overlook dynamic node participation challenges, which is crucial for the flexible IoT environment. In this study, we propose a blockchain-based cross-domain authentication scheme that supports dynamic node participation, allowing administrative domainss to freely join or leave under legal conditions. First, we introduce an efficient blockchain-based cross-domain authentication framework. Second, we propose a blockchain consensus algorithm that supports dynamic node participation to serve the aforementioned framework. Specifically, inspired by the transmission control protocol (TCP) protocol’s piggybacking strategy, this algorithm integrates the process of node joining and leaving into the regular consensus flow to enhance efficiency. To further improve the algorithm’s efficiency, we designed compressed block and parallel chain structures to increase bandwidth utilization and throughput. Detailed correctness proofs demonstrate the algorithm’s security. Extensive experiments have been conducted to show that our scheme increases throughput by approximately 8x compared to existing approaches.