Blockchain-Based Self-Sovereign Identity for Routing in Inter-Domain Networks.

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) has emerged lately as an identity and access management framework typically implemented based on distributed ledger technology (DLT), allowing device owners to administer and control their own data. In this article, a blockchain (BCN)-based SSI system has been developed as a new identity plane to enable routing device owners in autonomous systems (ASs) to have greater control over inter-domain networks (IDNs), potentially across multiple paths that comply with routing device-defined preferences. The proposed system provides identity management, authentication, and transparent information about routers, attested by ASs, while maintaining the privacy of sensitive network details. Device-level information and preferences are protected by BCN-based SSI. We used a GNS3 network emulation test bed and Hyperledger Indy distributed identity management system to test the proposed solution's AS convergence time and credential operation time, respectively. Experiment results demonstrate that when the proposed routing system was used in combination with the BCN-based SSI credential management platform, the convergence time for the inter-AS and intra-AS systems became longer as the number of routers increased, whereas the credential operations had shorter processing times.