Blockchain’s New Role In The Internet of Things
http://www.darkreading.com/iot/blockchains-new-role-in-the-internet-of-things/a/d-id/1328239
This article discusses the use of distributed consensus algorithms that combine both performance and security to prevent DDoS attacks such as the Mirai botnet attack that took down Dyn in October. Due to the large number of IoT devices the severity of DDos attacks have increased. By using a distributed consensus architecture you can prevent the attacker from targeting a single server and making them target several servers. This technology is currently used in Bitcoin and other transactional technology but due to performance restraints it hasn’t been a reliable option for DDos defense. However, there are firm developing distributed consensus technology that can handle the performance and security demands.
Blockchain is really interesting technology and I’m very curious in how it will be implemented more broadly. Many folks refer to Blockchain as a trust protocol and expect it to be the most dramatic change in computing since the Internet because of the value it adds to the Internet.
This article was interesting because it focused on Blockchain’s security capabilities (e.g. preventing DDoS attacks by eliminating central server). While we mainly here about Blockchain as it relates to Bitcoin and Ethereum, the applications of this distributed ledger extend way beyond crypto-currency. It’s interesting to see some of these concepts gain momentum.