Establishing overlay trust consensus for blockchain trust validation system

• US 10,360,191 B2
• Filed: 10/07/2016
• Issued: 07/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Christidis, Konstantinos, Derbakova, Anna D., Gaur, Nitin, Jayachandran, Praveen, Muralidharan, Srinivasan
• Primary Examiner(s): Trujillo, James
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bogacki, Michal Lawrence
• Application Number:
  US15/288,435
• Publication Number:
  US 20180101560A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,019 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/152 using file content signatures, e.g. hash values
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1837 Management specially adapted to peer-to-peer storage networks topology management mechanisms of peer-to-peer networks H04L67/1042
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1865 Transactional file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/215 Improving data quality; Data cleansing, e.g. de-duplication, removing invalid entries or correcting typographical errors
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/56 Financial cryptography, e.g. electronic payment or e-cash
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3236 using cryptographic hash functions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3297 involving time stamps, e.g. generation of time stamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/50 using hash chains, e.g. blockchains or hash trees

Abstract

The system, method, and computer program product described herein provides a built-in feedback mechanism for a blockchain to sanction validator nodes that consistently “vote” in a manner that does not match the ultimate consensus. The method includes receiving a vote on whether to add a transaction to the blockchain, comparing the vote to a consensus decision on whether to add the transaction to the blockchain, determining based on the comparison that the vote does not match the consensus decision, in response to determining that the vote does not match the consensus decision, incrementing a value associated with the validator node in a feedback registry, determining that the value associated with the validator node is above a predetermined threshold value, and in response to determining that the value associated with the validator node is above the predetermined threshold, proposing a sanction of the validator node to the plurality of validator nodes.

Claims

1. A method implemented by at least one hardware processor comprising:

receiving a vote on whether to add a block of transactions to a blockchain from a validator node associated with the blockchain;

comparing the vote to a consensus decision on whether to add the block of transactions to the blockchain, the consensus decision reached based on votes by a plurality of validator nodes of the blockchain, the plurality of validator nodes including the validator node;

determining based on the comparison that the vote does not match the consensus decision;

in response to determining that the vote does not match the consensus decision, incrementing a value associated with the validator node in a feedback registry;

determining that the value associated with the validator node is above a predetermined threshold value; and

in response to determining that the value associated with the validator node is above the predetermined threshold value, proposing a sanction of the validator node to the plurality of validator nodes;

receiving from the plurality of validator nodes a consensus decision on the sanction; and

applying the received consensus on the sanction to at least one future vote received from the validator node.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the proposed sanction comprises banning the validator node from participating in consensus decisions for a predetermined period of time.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the predetermined period of time is a permanent ban of the validator node.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said votes of said plurality of validator nodes of the blockchain are assigned a weight in a subsequent consensus round, the proposed sanction comprises decreasing a weight of the validator node'"'"'s vote on at least one future consensus decision relative to the weights of the votes of the plurality of validator nodes.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the sanction is predefined in a genesis block of the blockchain.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined threshold value is defined in a genesis block of the blockchain.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the received consensus decision on the sanction is an approval of the sanction, the method further comprising proposing appending the consensus decision on the sanction to the blockchain.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a second vote on whether to add a second transaction to the blockchain from the validator node;

comparing the second vote to a second consensus decision on whether to add the second transaction to the blockchain, the second consensus decision reached based on votes by the plurality of validator nodes of the blockchain;

determining based on the comparison of the second vote to the second consensus decision, that the second vote matches the second consensus decision;

in response to determining that the second vote matches the second consensus decision, decrementing the value associated with the validator node in the feedback registry;

determining that the value associated with the validator node is equal to or below the predetermined threshold value; and

in response to determining that the value associated with the validator node is equal to or below the predetermined threshold value, proposing a removal of the sanction to the plurality of validator nodes.

9. A system comprising:

at least one hardware processor configured to;

receive a vote on whether to add a transaction to a blockchain from a validator node associated with the blockchain;

compare the vote to a consensus decision on whether to add the transaction to the blockchain, the consensus decision reached based on votes by a plurality of validator nodes associated with the blockchain, the plurality of validator nodes including the validator node;

determine based on the comparison that the vote does not match the consensus decision;

in response to determining that the vote does not match the consensus decision, increment a value associated with the validator node in a feedback registry;

determine that the value associated with the validator node is above a predetermined threshold value; and

in response to determining that the value associated with the validator node is above the predetermined threshold value, propose a sanction of the validator node to the plurality of validator nodes;

receive from the plurality of validator nodes a consensus decision on the sanction; and

applying the received consensus decision on the sanction to at least one future vote received from the validator node.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the proposed sanction comprises banning the validator node from participating in consensus decisions for a predetermined period of time.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the predetermined period of time is a permanent ban of the validator node.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein said votes of said plurality of validator nodes of the blockchain are assigned a weight in a subsequent consensus round, the proposed sanction comprises decreasing a weight of the validator node'"'"'s vote on at least one future consensus decision relative to the weights of the votes of the plurality of validator nodes.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the sanction is predefined in a genesis block of the blockchain.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the predetermined threshold value is defined in a genesis block of the blockchain.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the received consensus decision is an approval of the sanction, the at least one processor further configured to propose appending the consensus decision on the sanction to the blockchain.

16. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:

receive a second vote on whether to add a second transaction to the blockchain from the validator node;

compare the second vote to a second consensus decision on whether to add the second transaction to the blockchain, the second consensus decision reached based on votes by the plurality of validator nodes of the blockchain;

determine based on the comparison to the second consensus decision that the second vote matches the second consensus decision;

in response to determining that the second vote matches the second consensus decision, decrement the value associated with the validator node in the feedback registry;

determine that the value associated with the validator node is equal to or below the predetermined threshold value; and

in response to determining that the value associated with the validator node is equal to or below the predetermined threshold value, propose a removal of the sanction to the plurality of validator nodes.

17. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that when executed by at least one hardware processor, configure the at least one hardware processor to:

receive a vote on whether to add a transaction to a blockchain from a validator node associated with the blockchain;

compare the vote to a consensus decision on whether to add the transaction to the blockchain, the consensus decision reached based on votes by a plurality of validator nodes associated with the blockchain, the plurality of validator nodes including the validator node;

determine based on the comparison that the vote does not match the consensus decision;

in response to determining that the vote does not match the consensus decision, increment a value associated with the validator node in a feedback registry;

determine that the value associated with the validator node is above a predetermined threshold value; and

in response to determining that the value associated with the validator node is above the predetermined threshold value, propose a sanction of the validator node to the plurality of validator nodes;

receive from the plurality of validator nodes a consensus decision on the sanction; and

apply the received consensus decision on the sanction to at least one future vote received from the validator node.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein said votes of said plurality of validator nodes of the blockchain are assigned a weight in a subsequent consensus round, the proposed sanction comprises at least one of:

banning the validator node from participating in consensus decisions for a predetermined period of time and decreasing a weight of the validator node'"'"'s vote on at least one future consensus decision relative to the weights assigned to the votes of the other validator nodes of the plurality of validator nodes.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the received consensus decision is an approval of the sanction, the at least one processor is further configured to propose appending the consensus decision on the sanction to the blockchain.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:

receive a second vote on whether to add a second transaction to the blockchain from the validator node;

compare the second vote to a second consensus decision on whether to add the second transaction to the blockchain, the second consensus decision reached based on votes by the plurality of validator nodes of the blockchain;

determine based on the comparison that the second vote matches the second consensus decision;

in response to determining that the second vote matches the second consensus decision, decrement the value associated with the validator node in the feedback registry;

determine that the value associated with the validator node is equal to or below the predetermined threshold value; and

in response to determining that the value associated with the validator node is equal to or below the predetermined threshold value, propose a removal of the sanction to the plurality of validator nodes.