{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,14]],"date-time":"2026-02-14T05:09:57Z","timestamp":1771045797023,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2019,5,21]],"date-time":"2019-05-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1558396800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Future Internet"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The Internet of Things (IoT) is a remarkable data producer and these data may be used to prevent or detect security vulnerabilities and increase productivity by the adoption of statistical and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. However, these desirable benefits are gained if data from IoT networks are dependable\u2014this is where blockchain comes into play. In fact, through blockchain, critical IoT data may be trusted, i.e., considered valid for any subsequent processing. A simple formal model named \u201cthe Mirror Model\u201d is proposed to connect IoT data organized in traditional models to assets of trust in a blockchain. The Mirror Model sets some formal conditions to produce trusted data that remain trusted over time. A possible practical implementation of an application programming interface (API) is proposed, which keeps the data and the trust model in synch. Finally, it is noted that the Mirror Model enforces a top-down approach from reality to implementation instead of going the opposite way as it is now the practice when referring to blockchain and the IoT.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/fi11050117","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,5,21]],"date-time":"2019-05-21T10:52:51Z","timestamp":1558435971000},"page":"117","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":18,"title":["Enhancing IoT Data Dependability through a Blockchain Mirror Model"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Alessandro","family":"Bellini","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Mathema s.r.l., 50142 Florence, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7878-8710","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Emanuele","family":"Bellini","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Mathema s.r.l., 50142 Florence, Italy"},{"name":"Center of Cyber Physical Systems, Khalifa University of Science, Technology &amp; Research, Abu Dhabi 127788, UAE"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4690-1448","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Monica","family":"Gherardelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Engineering, University of Florence, 50139 Florence, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Franco","family":"Pirri","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Engineering, University of Florence, 50139 Florence, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,5,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Ghosh, P. (2019, May 14). Machine Learning Causing \u201cScience Crisis\u201d. Available online: https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-47267081."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"International Telecommunications Unit (ITU) (2019, May 14). Report on AI and IoT in Security Aspects. Available online: https:\/\/www.itu.int\/en\/ITU-D\/Conferences\/GSR\/Documents\/GSR2018\/documents\/AISeries_Security_AspectsModule_GSR18.pdf."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Conoscenti, M., Vetr\u00f2, A., and De Martin, J.C. (December, January 29). Blockchain for the Internet of things: A systematic literature review. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE\/ACS 13th International Conference of Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA), Agadir, Morocco.","DOI":"10.1109\/AICCSA.2016.7945805"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ali, M.S., Vecchio, M., Pincheira, M., Dolui, K., Antonelli, F., and Rehmani, M.H. (2018). Applications of blockchains in the Internet of Things: A comprehensive survey. IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor.","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2018.2886932"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Panarello, A., Tapas, N., Merlino, G., Longo, F., and Puliafito, A. (2018). Blockchain and IoT integration: A systematic survey. Sensors, 18.","DOI":"10.3390\/s18082575"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"246","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ins.2016.05.051","article-title":"A partenership approach to improve QoS on federated infrastructures","volume":"367","author":"Comi","year":"2016","journal-title":"Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"149","DOI":"10.1016\/j.dcan.2017.10.006","article-title":"A blockchain future for internet of things security: A position paper","volume":"4","author":"Banerjee","year":"2018","journal-title":"Digit. Commun. Netw."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"395","DOI":"10.1016\/j.future.2017.11.022","article-title":"IoT security review, blockchain solutions, and open challenges","volume":"82","author":"Khan","year":"2018","journal-title":"Future Gener. Comput. Syst."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bellini, E., Luddi, C., Cirinn\u00e0, C., Lunghi, M., Felicetti, A., Bazzanella, B., and Bouquet, P. (2012, January 25\u201329). Interoperability knowledge base for persistent identifiers interoperability framework. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Signal Image Technology and Internet Based Systems (SITIS), Naples, Italy.","DOI":"10.1109\/SITIS.2012.130"},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"347","DOI":"10.1504\/IJKL.2014.069536","article-title":"NBN:IT The Italian trusted persistent identifier infrastructure","volume":"9","author":"Bellini","year":"2014","journal-title":"Int. J. Knowl. Learn."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Herrmann, M., Petzold, J., and Bombatkar, V. (2018, January 12\u201313). Blockchain-backed analytics. Adding blockchain-based quality gates to data science projects. Proceedings of the CARMA 2018\u20142nd International Conference on Advanced Research Methods, Valencia, Spain.","DOI":"10.4995\/CARMA2018.2018.8292"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bellini, E., Ceravolo, P., and Damiani, E. (2019, January 8\u201313). Blockchain-based e-Vote-as-a-Service. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD 2019), Milan, Italy. accepted.","DOI":"10.1109\/CLOUD.2019.00085"},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Yaga, D., Mell, P., and Roby, N. (2018). Blockchain Technology Overview, NIST. NISTIR 8202.","DOI":"10.6028\/NIST.IR.8202"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"32979","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2018.2842685","article-title":"A review on the use of blockchain for the internet of things","volume":"6","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chowdhury, M.J.M., Colman, A., Kabir, M.A., Han, J., and Sarda, P. (2018, January 1\u20133). Blockchain Versus Database: A Critical Analysis. Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications\/12th IEEE International Conference on Big Data Science and Engineering (TrustCom\/BigDataSE), New York, NY, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/TrustCom\/BigDataSE.2018.00186"},{"key":"ref_16","unstructured":"(2019, May 21). BigchainDB 2.0. Available online: https:\/\/www.bigchaindb.com\/whitepaper\/bigchaindb-whitepaper.pdf."},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"Meyer, B. (1990). Introduction to the Theory of Programming Languages, Prentice-Hall. [1st ed.]."},{"key":"ref_18","unstructured":"Landerreche, E., and Stevens, M. (2018, January 8\u20139). On Immutability of Blockchains. Proceedings of the 1st ERCIM Blockchain Workshop 2018, Reports of the European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies, Amsterdam, The Netherlands."},{"key":"ref_19","unstructured":"Kupferman, O., and Pnueli, A. (1995, January 26\u201329). Once and for all [temporal logic]. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, San Deigo, CA, USA."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lu, D., Huang, D., Walenstein, A., and Medhi, D. (2017, January 6\u20139). A secure microservice framework for IoT. Proceedings of the 2017 11th IEEE Symposium on Service-Oriented System Engineering (SOSE), San Francisco, CA, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/SOSE.2017.27"},{"key":"ref_21","unstructured":"(2019, May 14). LoopBack. Available online: https:\/\/loopback.io\/."},{"key":"ref_22","unstructured":"(2019, May 14). Hyperledger Fabric. Available online: https:\/\/www.hyperledger.org\/projects\/fabric."},{"key":"ref_23","unstructured":"(2019, May 14). Go programming language. Available online: https:\/\/golang.org\/."},{"key":"ref_24","unstructured":"(2019, May 14). Kong API Gateway. Available online: https:\/\/konghq.com\/kong\/."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Di Pietro, R., Salleras, X., Signorini, M., and Waisbard, E. (2018, January 13\u201315). A blockchain-Based Trust System for the Internet of Things. Proceedings of the 23nd ACM on Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies, SACMAT \u201818, Indianapolis, IN, USA.","DOI":"10.1145\/3205977.3205993"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ouaddah, A., Elkalam, A.A., and Ouahman, A.A. (2017, January 22\u201323). Harnessing the power of blockchain technology to solve IoT security & privacy issues. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Internet of Things, Data and Cloud Computing, ICC \u201917, Cambridge, UK. Article No. 7.","DOI":"10.1145\/3018896.3018901"},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Casado-Vara, R., de la Prieta, F., Prieto, J., and Corchado, J.M. (2018, January 4). Blockchain framework for IoT data quality via edge computing. Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Blockchain-Enabled Networked Sensor Systems, BlockSys\u201918, Shenzhen, China.","DOI":"10.1145\/3282278.3282282"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Brotsis, S., Kolokotronis, N., Limniotis, K., Shiaeles, S., Kavallieros, D., Bellini, E., and Pavue, C. (2019, January 24\u201328). Blockchain solutions for forensic evidence preservation in IoT environments. Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE Conference on Network Softwarization (IEEE NetSoft), Paris, France.","DOI":"10.1109\/NETSOFT.2019.8806675"},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bellini, E., Nesi, P., Pantaleo, G., and Venturi, A. (2016, January 25\u201329). Functional resonance analysis method based-decision support tool for urban transport system resilience management. Proceedings of the IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2) (ISC2 2016), Trento, Italy.","DOI":"10.1109\/ISC2.2016.7580833"}],"container-title":["Future Internet"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1999-5903\/11\/5\/117\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T12:53:50Z","timestamp":1760187230000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1999-5903\/11\/5\/117"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2019,5,21]]},"references-count":29,"journal-issue":{"issue":"5","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,5]]}},"alternative-id":["fi11050117"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/fi11050117","relation":{},"ISSN":["1999-5903"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1999-5903","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2019,5,21]]}}}