Written by: Gloria Wang

With the boom of cryptocurrency in the last couple years, decentralization⁠— distributing control away from a single source— has become an increasingly popular methodology. Blockchain, a technology widely known for its applications in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, is the core of the decentralization process. As its name suggests, blockchain is fundamentally composed of “blocks”— data structures composed of a transaction history, a hash, and the previous hash. A hash is like a digital fingerprint; a completely unique representation of a transaction typically of alphanumeric composition. Because each block is linked to the one before by the previous hash, changing one hash means changing them all, which is nearly impossible.

Application in Robotics Communication

The decentralization aspect of blockchain technology comes from the distribution of the recorded transactions. Every user has an identical copy of the blockchain, so there are multiple sources that can collectively verify the accuracy of any given account. Due to this ability to authenticate each transaction, blockchain’s application in security is appealing⁠— especially for communication.

In a paper published in IEEE Transactions on Robotics just last month, researchers at MIT and Polytechnic University of Madrid explain that blockchain technology could make communication between robots more secure by comparing each copy of directions and ignoring the one that doesn’t match the rest.

Figure 1

Visualization of the robots’ communication blockchain given three transactions each containing three fields: the sender robot, local sequence index, and the instruction message.

Source: Ferrer et. al., 2021

In addition, the researchers’ system is designed so that “lying costs money.” Each leader robot receives a certain number of tokens, which will be confiscated for every misinformation spread. “When the malicious robots run out of tokens, they can no longer spread [false information]. So, you can limit or constrain the lies that the system can expose the robots to” (Ferrer 2021). With this system, the study found that while a follower robot was initially misled, it was able to complete its assigned task.

Applicable in self-driving car systems used to transport passengers or deliver goods, blockchain for secure communication in robotics could become more relevant in the immediate future than many expect.

Applications in Social Media

Similarly, in social media, privacy is a growing concern. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tiktok collect data on millions of users. Data collection tactics have included reading users’ clipboards and aggregating personal information, leading to concerns over privacy and data security. As the popular saying goes, “In big data, the consumer is the product.”

UTU.ONE is one of the first platforms attempting to decentralize social media. Built on the EOSIO blockchain, it supports both efficient and environmentally friendly development. While the Bitcoin network uses the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism which has “a vast army of nodes on the network competing to solve a mathematical puzzle and ‘mine’ tokens,” EOSIO implements the Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) mechanism that delegates work to 21 nodes⁠— saving processing power and electricity.

Eliminating bots and fake accounts through Certified Biometric Liveness Detection and 3D face authentication, UTU is pushing for a safe and secure environment. With the open-source EOSIO blockchain, cyberbullying and fraud are traceable and contained.

Conclusion

While security and privacy concerns are still extremely prevalent in this tech-driven world, researchers and innovators are working to make technology safer and more secure. Through applications of blockchain technology in a variety of fields like robotics and social media, perhaps communication will become more trustworthy.

References and Sources

E. C. Ferrer, E. Jiménez, J. L. Lopez-Presa and J. Martín-Rueda, “Following Leaders in Byzantine Multirobot Systems by Using Blockchain Technology,” in IEEE Transactions on Robotics, doi: 10.1109/TRO.2021.3104243.

T Tomu, “Can Blockchain Solve the Social Media Privacy Puzzle?,” Data Driven Investor, Medium, https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/can-blockchain-solve-the-social-media-privacy-puzzle-28ba32c6522f