Blockchain-based Edge Computing Data Storage Protocol Under Simplified Group Signature

Abstract

In contrast to the traditional cloud-based IoT structure, which imposes high computation and storage demands on the central cloud server, edge computing can process data at the network edge. In this paper, we present an edge computing data storage protocol employing the blockchain and the group signature, where the blockchain works as the trusted third party, offering a convenient platform for the data storage and protection, and the group signature is utilized for privacy identity information protection. Unlike the common group signature scheme, we propose a notion of \emph{simplified group signature}, which removes the traceable property to improve the computational efficiency. In edge computing, the edge devices and the end devices can easily set up a long-term trust relationship through the cloud services, so the traceability may be of little utility in this scenario. In our protocol, we also design a new data validation scheme that has a proof size of only <formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex>$O(1)$</tex></formula> .