IoT Message Consensus Architecture for Fault and Attack Tolerance
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Solution Overview
Problem
IoT networks face challenges in ensuring security and reliability due to resource constraints, device diversity, and evolving operational environments, making it difficult to implement redundancy and maintain communication in the presence of faulty or malicious components.
Innovation Solution
A method and system utilizing multiple handling modules that subscribe, process, and sign messages, determining a consensus across replicated components to ensure message delivery, even in the presence of faults or attacks, without requiring significant modifications to existing IoT devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If multiple handling modules are added to ensure fault tolerance and attack resistance, then reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the handling function into multiple independent handling modules that can operate autonomously. Each module processes messages independently through the same set of rules, and the system achieves reliability through the collective operation of these segmented components rather than a single complex centralized system.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the operational parameters by introducing a consensus mechanism where handling modules exchange signed messages and determine agreement on message processing. This parameter change from individual processing to consensus-based processing enables fault tolerance without requiring each module to be overly complex, as they follow identical processing logic.
2Reliability
If redundancy is implemented through multiple handling modules, then message delivery reliability is improved, but the difficulty of detecting and measuring system state increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback through the consensus mechanism where handling modules continuously exchange signed messages about their processing state. Each module receives feedback from others in the form of signed messages containing processing status, enabling automatic detection of faults and measurement of system state without complex monitoring infrastructure.
Solution Approach 2:
The handling modules perform self-service by automatically detecting their own operational status and the status of other modules through the consensus process. Each module independently determines when consensus is reached and when faults occur, eliminating the need for external monitoring systems to detect and measure system state.
Data Source
AI summary
This disclosure relates to an attack and fault tolerant Internet of Things (IoT) network. Multiple handling modules of a computer system subscribe to messages from a publisher device. Each handling module receives a message from the publisher device, processes the message to generate a processed message and signs the processed message using a private key stored on the handling module to generate a signed message. Each handling module then sends the signed message to the other handling modules, subscribes to messages from the other handling modules and receives multiple signed messages from the other handling modules. Each handling module then determines a consensus upon receiving a majority number of the multiple signed messages from the other handling modules, generates a consensus message containing the multiple respective signatures of the handling modules in response to determining the consensus and sends the consensus message to the subscriber device.