Article
Open Access
Trust@TEE.TIME: a platform for embedded elapsed time schemes in trusted execution environments for blockchain
1 Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CEA, Leti, F-38000 Grenoble, France
2 Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble INP, LCIS, 26000 Valence, France
Abstract

consensus protocols and peer-provided proofs are the necessary components used to establish trust in blockchain systems. Verifiable proofs that guarantee an elapsed time based on security components have emerged as alternatives to energy-intensive Proof of Work (PoW). These proofs are well-suited for embedding consensus protocols running on resource-constrained devices. This paper proposes Trust@TEE.TIME, an experimental platform designed to instrument and characterize several proof mechanisms within embedded devices. Our platform is proof-agnostic, allowing it to accommodate various proof generation mechanisms without modifications to the underlying hardware or architecture. It comprises Systems on Module featuring an ARM Cortex-A7 processor with a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) and a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). These components are collaboratively used to ensure secure proof generation. This paper is an extension of a previous paper which introduced Proof of Hardware Time (PoHT). It provides a more detailed description of the experimental platform and a comparison of power consumption and time delay with different average elapsed time between blocks. In addition, we show that PoHT achieves an average power reduction factor of 7 to 117 compared to PoW.

Keywords

blockchain; embedded systems; elapsed time; trusted execution environment; energy consumption; trusted platform module; proof of hardware time

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