@book{MeinelGayvoronskayaSchnjakin2018, author = {Meinel, Christoph and Gayvoronskaya, Tatiana and Schnjakin, Maxim}, title = {Blockchain}, number = {124}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-441-8}, issn = {1613-5652}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-414525}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {102}, year = {2018}, abstract = {The term blockchain has recently become a buzzword, but only few know what exactly lies behind this approach. According to a survey, issued in the first quarter of 2017, the term is only known by 35 percent of German medium-sized enterprise representatives. However, the blockchain technology is very interesting for the mass media because of its rapid development and global capturing of different markets. For example, many see blockchain technology either as an all-purpose weapon— which only a few have access to—or as a hacker technology for secret deals in the darknet. The innovation of blockchain technology is found in its successful combination of already existing approaches: such as decentralized networks, cryptography, and consensus models. This innovative concept makes it possible to exchange values in a decentralized system. At the same time, there is no requirement for trust between its nodes (e.g. users). With this study the Hasso Plattner Institute would like to help readers form their own opinion about blockchain technology, and to distinguish between truly innovative properties and hype. The authors of the present study analyze the positive and negative properties of the blockchain architecture and suggest possible solutions, which can contribute to the efficient use of the technology. We recommend that every company define a clear target for the intended application, which is achievable with a reasonable cost-benefit ration, before deciding on this technology. Both the possibilities and the limitations of blockchain technology need to be considered. The relevant steps that must be taken in this respect are summarized /summed up for the reader in this study. Furthermore, this study elaborates on urgent problems such as the scalability of the blockchain, appropriate consensus algorithm and security, including various types of possible attacks and their countermeasures. New blockchains, for example, run the risk of reducing security, as changes to existing technology can lead to lacks in the security and failures. After discussing the innovative properties and problems of the blockchain technology, its implementation is discussed. There are a lot of implementation opportunities for companies available who are interested in the blockchain realization. The numerous applications have either their own blockchain as a basis or use existing and widespread blockchain systems. Various consortia and projects offer "blockchain-as-a-service{\"a}nd help other companies to develop, test and deploy their own applications. This study gives a detailed overview of diverse relevant applications and projects in the field of blockchain technology. As this technology is still a relatively young and fast developing approach, it still lacks uniform standards to allow the cooperation of different systems and to which all developers can adhere. Currently, developers are orienting themselves to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Hyperledger systems, which serve as the basis for many other blockchain applications. The goal is to give readers a clear and comprehensive overview of blockchain technology and its capabilities.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Krentz2019, author = {Krentz, Konrad-Felix}, title = {A Denial-of-Sleep-Resilient Medium Access Control Layer for IEEE 802.15.4 Networks}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-43930}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-439301}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xiv, 187}, year = {2019}, abstract = {With the emergence of the Internet of things (IoT), plenty of battery-powered and energy-harvesting devices are being deployed to fulfill sensing and actuation tasks in a variety of application areas, such as smart homes, precision agriculture, smart cities, and industrial automation. In this context, a critical issue is that of denial-of-sleep attacks. Such attacks temporarily or permanently deprive battery-powered, energy-harvesting, or otherwise energy-constrained devices of entering energy-saving sleep modes, thereby draining their charge. At the very least, a successful denial-of-sleep attack causes a long outage of the victim device. Moreover, to put battery-powered devices back into operation, their batteries have to be replaced. This is tedious and may even be infeasible, e.g., if a battery-powered device is deployed at an inaccessible location. While the research community came up with numerous defenses against denial-of-sleep attacks, most present-day IoT protocols include no denial-of-sleep defenses at all, presumably due to a lack of awareness and unsolved integration problems. After all, despite there are many denial-of-sleep defenses, effective defenses against certain kinds of denial-of-sleep attacks are yet to be found. The overall contribution of this dissertation is to propose a denial-of-sleep-resilient medium access control (MAC) layer for IoT devices that communicate over IEEE 802.15.4 links. Internally, our MAC layer comprises two main components. The first main component is a denial-of-sleep-resilient protocol for establishing session keys among neighboring IEEE 802.15.4 nodes. The established session keys serve the dual purpose of implementing (i) basic wireless security and (ii) complementary denial-of-sleep defenses that belong to the second main component. The second main component is a denial-of-sleep-resilient MAC protocol. Notably, this MAC protocol not only incorporates novel denial-of-sleep defenses, but also state-of-the-art mechanisms for achieving low energy consumption, high throughput, and high delivery ratios. Altogether, our MAC layer resists, or at least greatly mitigates, all denial-of-sleep attacks against it we are aware of. Furthermore, our MAC layer is self-contained and thus can act as a drop-in replacement for IEEE 802.15.4-compliant MAC layers. In fact, we implemented our MAC layer in the Contiki-NG operating system, where it seamlessly integrates into an existing protocol stack.}, language = {en} }