IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - March/April 2020 - 9

presence.1 Blockchain provides an answer to
many issues. Every participant having a copy of
the entire or partial ledger of transactions,
makes the entire process transparent. Since its
introduction in 2008, it has been explored for a
variety of applications (See Figure 1 1-4).
The Internet of Things (IoT), a possible
application of blockchain, is part of a bigger
environment, the Internet-of-Everything (IoE).
With the increased number of devices in IoE
environments, the number of vulnerabilities
increase at the same rate.5-7 Every new device
can potentially act as a different entry point
for attackers. The blockchain uses cryptographic hash functions for maintaining consistency and security in the ledgers.8 Various IoT
devices are prone to attacks and data safeguarding has become a major issue. The blockchain can be a potential solution with an
integration into IoT architectures.8

INTERNET OF EVERYTHING (IOE)-
THE NEED FOR BOTH DEVICE AND
DATA SECURITY
The IoT is the backbone for a variety of smart
application domains, including smart cities, smart
healthcare, and smart transportation. In essence
"Instrumentation,"
"Interconnections,"
and
"Intelligence," which are referred to as the 3Is of a
smart city, are due to the IoT.9 The IoE is a concept that has the IoT integrated as one of its components.6 An edge layer is present as part of the
IoT network helping in data processing before
sending it to the cloud. With such environments
appearing in most of the application domains, the
use of devices with communication capabilities
has seen new use cases. A new idea for the network of connected devices is making its way, the
IoE.6,7 There are four main components to an IoE
environment (See Figure 2): (1) People; (2) Data;
(3) Process; and (4) Things.
People, in an IoE environment, are part of the
network of nodes. Traditionally, electronic devices, hand held or desktop helped the people
connect to the Internet and have access to the
world. But with the introduction of the IoE, innumerable new ways of communication are at the
disposal of people. As an example, implantable
medical devices (IMDs) that are inside a human

March/April 2020

Figure 1. Possible applications of blockchain technology.1

body, such as a pacemaker, transmit the data to
the server for doctors to diagnose. Similar are
wearable medical devices (WMDs), which a person can wear on their body for various applications such as heart rate monitoring.2 These are
collectively called implantable and wearable
medical devices (IWMDs).10
Data, in the case of the traditional IoT network, are transferred as is. With the introduction
of an Edge layer added to the network, not all the
data are transmitted to the destination. Data collection could be performed using various methods, such as crowd sourcing, involving people.
Only the information that can be used for further
analysis is sent to the cloud. The raw data are
converted into useful information by the devices
themselves or the edge layer. This processing of
data into information in an IoE environment
helps in making decisions more accurately at a
faster rate. The data that are collected are leveraged for making intelligent decisions in various
aspects of our day-to-day-life.7,11
Process helps in delivering the right data to
the right place at the right time. This process is
responsible for the flow of data through the network. An IoE network contains many entities,
from people, to devices and cloud. The data that
are collected by the devices from the environment or the people, has to be processed and
information has to be extracted. This information
from the raw data is transmitted to the cloud or
for further processing or decision making.
Things are responsible for the data collection.
Things have evolved in many categories. The devices have communication capabilities, wireless or
wired and are capable of transmitting data collected from the environment.

IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - March/April 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - March/April 2020