COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material to which a claim for copyright is made. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the United States Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but reserves all other copyright rights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to machine-to-machine communication and distributed ledger technology.

2. Description of the Background Art

Internet of things (IOT) refers to network connectivity of everyday devices and other devices that are traditionally “dumb.” IOT devices include smart sensors, transducers, and so on. When deployed in a smart home, IOT devices allow for home automation, such as control of thermostats, light bulbs, door locks, etc., remotely over the Internet. Similarly, smart cities may have hundreds if not thousands of IOT devices for surveillance, pollution monitoring, and other functions accessible over the Internet.

Unfortunately, the main strength of IOT devices, i.e., network connectivity, is also its main weakness. More particularly, a cyberattack may be launched against IOT devices to gain control of them for malicious purposes.

SUMMARY

In one embodiment, a system includes Internet of things (IOT) devices that are paired with corresponding edge computers. Smart contracts are generated for edge computers and deployed in a blockchain. Upon receipt of a message, a smart contract compares a sender of the message to a designated owner of the smart contract. The smart contract has a privilege checker that allows a message from the owner of the smart contract to initiate execution of a function that modifies a variable of the smart contract, but prevents messages from non-owners from initiating execution of the function.

These and other features of the present invention will be readily apparent to persons of ordinary skill in the art upon reading the entirety of this disclosure, which includes the accompanying drawings and claims.

