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arXiv · 1904.00996

Distributed Ledger Technology for IoT: Parasite Chain Attacks

Andrew Cullen·Pietro Ferraro·Christopher King·Robert Shorten
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Abstract

Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) based Distributed Ledgers can be useful in a number of applications in the IoT domain. A distributed ledger should serve as an immutable and irreversible record of transactions, however, a DAG structure is a more complicated mathematical object than its blockchain counterparts, and as a result, providing guarantees of immutability and irreversibility is more involved. In this paper, we analyse a commonly discussed attack scenario known as a parasite chain attack for the IOTA Foundation DAG based ledger. We analyse the efficacy of IOTA core MCMC algorithm using a matrix model and present an extension which improves the ledger resistance to these attacks.

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Andrew Cullen, Pietro Ferraro, Christopher King, Robert Shorten. 2019-03-21. Distributed Ledger Technology for IoT: Parasite Chain Attacks. https://doi.org/10.1109/jiot.2020.2983401

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