Forseti: a Decentralized Permission Transfer Framework for IoT Leasing

The widespread use of IoT devices in the accommodation and hospitality sectors has created demand for temporary device-permission sharing and transfer. Prior work has largely focused on security issues in device permission sharing, with far less attention devoted to device permission transfer. However, inappropriate access control management during device permission transfer can also lead to violations of the users' expectations of control over their devices. For example, a malicious host retaining or regaining access to a camera after its permission has been transferred to a tenant. In this paper, we present the first systematic study on understanding and enhancing the security of device permission transfer in IoT leasing. To this end, we propose Forseti, a new authorization framework that leverages zero-knowledge proof and a decentralized ledger to ensure that the rights of both hosts and tenants are not violated. Our evaluation demonstrates that Forseti is effective, efficient, scalable, and compatible with existing IoT platforms.