Methods and devices for encouraging participation in fog networks

摘要

A method and apparatus for encouraging device participation within a decentralized network. In one illustrative embodiment, a device in a fog network may provide computation, storage, and/or network resources in exchange for, for example, a replaceable token. In one of these variants, the user contribution is recorded in the blockchain data structure, so that the user can later be rewarded for the resource contribution to the network. In contrast to existing networking technologies that often rely on centralized networks to direct and direct user equipment for network bandwidth, various aspects of the present invention do not require authentication or trust exchanges, but at the edge of the network (within the fog). It is about enabling credits and debits of participation to be carried out. More directly, various aspects of the present invention relate to verification and/or verification of operations performed by peer devices.