Research Summary: Trustworthy mobile edge caching: a blockchain approach to mitigate malicious nodes and incentivize cache sharing

The increasing volume of mobile network traffic necessitates advanced content caching solutions at the network edge to reduce latency. This research identifies critical challenges including malicious edge servers manipulating or deleting cached content, and the limited capacity of these servers. It proposes a blockchain-based trust management mechanism to address these issues, aiming to identify trustworthy edge servers and mobile helper nodes while incentivizing cache sharing.

Why it matters

Addressing the challenges of mobile edge caching is vital for ensuring the reliability and efficiency of digital infrastructure as network traffic escalates. Solutions that mitigate malicious activity and incentivize resource sharing are critical for maintaining service quality and protecting data integrity, which directly impacts user experience and operational continuity.

Key insights

• Growing mobile network traffic requires content caching on edge servers to mitigate latency.
• Challenges include the risk of malicious edge servers manipulating or deleting cached content.
• Limited capacity of edge servers necessitates the use of helper mobile nodes for additional cache resources.
• Incentive mechanisms are crucial to encourage selfish helper mobile nodes to share their cache resources.
• Helper mobile nodes can also pose a risk if they are malicious.
• A blockchain-based trust management mechanism is proposed to identify trustworthy edge servers and mobile nodes.
• The proposed mechanism calculates trust based on direct interactions.

Source

arXiv — Computers and Society — https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.20145