Blockchain-based Trust Frameworks for Secure and Sustainable Distributed Computing

Abstract

New computing environments such as the cloud, edge, and Internet of Things (IoT) introduce new challenges in trust management, security, and energy efficiency. Centralized trust management systems focus on a single point of failure, making them less transparent and more vulnerable to attack. This paper presents the first trust framework based on blockchain technology to support security and sustainability in distributed computing systems. The methodology presented in this paper combines distributed ledger technology, smart contracts, and a lightweight consensus mechanism to provide a transparent and computationally inexpensive way to trust evaluation. To evaluate trust dynamically at a given node, a multi-factor trust model is used that incorporates trust, security, behavioral factors, and energy efficiency. A distributed system with 100 nodes and 1000 transactions per node was used to evaluate the framework experimentally. Results indicated that the proposed system attained a trust score of 95%, and performed better than centralized (82%) and reputation-based (88%) models. The system also improved energy efficiency by 26.7% relative to baseline systems, indicating that the computing system can be integrated to enhance sustainability. The blockchain framework trust models provided security and energy savings in distributed systems. It also presented robust designs and useful computational environments. Future extensions of this work will focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) based trust prediction and on determining hybrid blockchains for performance improvements.