A scalable identity management scheme via blockchain: Identity protection and traceability

Traditional identity management solutions currently encounter numerous challenges. (1) These solutions store user information in centralized databases, thereby exposing them to potential risks such as single points of failure and privacy breaches. (2) The lack of data compatibility between various applications leads to escalated communication expenses. (3) While existing solutions strive to tackle these challenges through blockchain, tracking malicious users often proves to be challenging. Moreover, due to the full-replication strategies of the blockchain, the storage overhead becomes excessive. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a scalable identity management scheme utilizing blockchain technology, with the primary goal of enhancing identity protection and traceability. We also integrate blockchain technology with Reed-Solomon (RS) encoding and Certificateless Aggregate Signature (CLAS) to safeguard user information, with each node specifically storing a portion of the encoded data block. In contrast to traditional identity management solutions. (1) Our approach tackles the single point of failure problem by blockchain. Simultaneously, it ensures the security of identity and the ability to track malicious users. Users need only upload information once to access different applications without maintaining multiple sets of account passwords. (2) Furthermore, compared to the traditional blockchain full replication strategy, our method significantly reduces storage overhead from O(n) to O(1), greatly improving scalability. Meanwhile, we eliminate time for block searches, accelerating the processes of authentication and information traceability. (3) Our scheme employs CLAS to verify data integrity, ensuring the reliability of received data. In the real world, our solution demonstrates high availability and scalability, with performance analysis and experimental evaluation providing relevant data for validation.