Hudson Jameson of Oaken Innovations, known for being an advisor to Status and Chainlink, featured as a guest speaker at Blockcon in Santa Monica to discuss blockchain applications in the Internet of Things (IoT).
IoT is a booming industry, with experts estimating that 30 billion objects will be accounted for by 2020. While we have seen certain blockchain innovations such as decentralizing the supply chain, Hudson in his talk seems to focus on vehicle applications and security.
Through his company's patented black box, Hudson believes in creating a security layer between the client, an IoT device, and the internet. While we may not need to worry about hackers breaching our baby monitors, a very real threat exists in regards to hijacking security cameras or, say, autonomous cars.
We have seen how hackers can remotely control a vehicle and disable it in highway traffic (see Wired). Speculation had ensued that reporter Michael Hastings was killed in a car crash via remote hacking. These potential security holes call for robust solutions to stave off malicious actors.
Hudson apparently solves this issue by using applied cryptography to allow devices to talk to each other on the blockchain and ensure that the device IDs are immutable. He developed his own platform that uses elements of blockchain tech and distributed file storage to build a system in which the machine can autonomously or semi-autonomously communicate with other machines or entities. So when a car drives down the road, that car is its own unique identity that can protect itself and send or broadcast messages in a way that could not be done previously. Any attempted tampering is met with a self-destruct mechanism that instantly wipes the data.
In addition to security, Hudson addresses applications to city infrastructure, specifically highway toll gates. Oaken Innovations had outfitted Teslas with blockchain nodes so that data coming from Tesla would pass to the node, then through the ETH network, then through a toll gate. When communication reaches the toll gate, a smart contract would then execute allowing the car to authenticate itself and pay the toll automatically. By eliminating several middle layers, and assuming state wide adoption by Texas, Hudson estimated that billions of dollars would be saved, reducing toll fees from 3-5% to 0.1%.
In IoT, apparently cars are among the most immediately applicable use cases. In the near future, we may see each car having its own verifiable identity on the blockchain, with the ability to talk to other machines to feed data, make payments, etc.
What else is in store? Hudson is working with Toyota Research Institute and other companies to create a "distributed car leasing application", essentially a decentralized version of Turo, which allows users to place their cars on the rental market when they are not using them. While we may still require 3rd parties for insurance and protection, such blockchain applications show some promise.
IoT seems to be one of the major blockchain trends to watch out for in 2018.