Blockchain: Porsche safeguard its cars against hackers via blockchain
Blockchain has been described as the new internet as it is self regulated, plus, transparent. Blockchain Technology has also enabled the birth of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin & Ethereum! Now companies like Porsche are using Blockchain technology to secure cars!
The blockchain does not only play a role in Bitcoin. The sports car manufacturer Porsche wants to bring the technology together with a start-up in his vehicles. This should protect the cars against hacker attacks.
Porsche wants to be the first automaker from 2021 to bring blockchain technology into its vehicles. To this end, the sports car manufacturer is working with Xain.
The Berlin start-up had won the first “Porsche Innovation Contest” on Blockchain in summer 2017 and presented its results at a digitization workshop of the automaker in Stuttgart. The sports car manufacturer is in a process of digital transformation.
First a definition: What is a Blockchain? It is a decentralized protocol distributed on many computers for data transactions — the opposite of a central server. One can imagine the Blockchain like a cash book, in which all transactions were encrypted and chronologically entered.
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Each entry is a block. And because the blocks follow each other, the whole thing is called a “chain”. Its decentralized architecture firstly protects the Blockchain from hacker attacks, and secondly, it guarantees ownership of its data to the owner. Only he can access the data with his “private key” stored in the blockchain, which one can imagine as a TAN.
Blockchain app unlocks cars safely
In the car of the future, different scenarios for this technology are conceivable. An app can replace the car key. That’s not new in itself, but it’s safer and faster than traditional key apps using Blockchain.
For example, a car owner can securely deposit access authorizations for one or more persons in a blockchain from hackers. He may also allow individual persons temporary access to a vehicle, such as a parcel carrier, who should deposit a delivery in the trunk. Such a technology has already been tested on a Panamera.
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Even payment transactions can be handled safely with blockchain technology — parking tickets, tolls or the electricity bill after charging an electric car. The safety of charging stations has recently been criticized for their vulnerable software. Smart contracts called digitally agreed contracts based on a blockchain could handle the sale of energy at the charging station abuse-proof.
Prevent hacker attacks on cars
Another weak point for the safety of networked vehicles are the interfaces to the Internet. “Using the back ends to the outside and the various interfaces has made it easy for hackers to access the vehicle infrastructure,” warns Porsche’s IT board member Lutz Meschke in an interview with “NGIN Mobility”.
Above all, he wants to protect important safety features in the vehicle from hacker attacks. “The decentralized filing of the data makes the hacker attack almost impossible,” says Meschke about the new technology.
Blockchain technology ready for series production by 2021
Self-driving vehicles can also communicate directly with each other. You can automatically negotiate and implement a contract without any human intervention. “Blockchain enables machine-cantered decentralized learning of the self-driving car with data from other vehicles in a fleet,” says development engineer Johannes Immel, explaining the potential of the technology.
The blockchain is still in the prototype phase, and is the first results, which Porsche has developed together with the Berlin start-up Xain AG, but was promising.”We expect to be able to do so in 2021 and integrate Blockchain technology,” said Porsche IT Board Member Lutz Meschke
ZF develops “eWallet” for connected cars
Other companies in the automotive industry are also experimenting with blockchain technology. The supplier ZF, the bank UBS and the software giant IBM are working on a so-called Car eWallet, which should enable secure transactions at charging stations, in parking garages and at toll stations.
Not all Blockchain concepts are successful.
For example, Blockchain’s charging network Motion Werk (Share & Charge) abandons the idea of a peer-to-peer charging network and thus its B2C business, as “Electrive.net” first reported.
They want to focus in future on the expansion of B2B business and open the platform as open source software, it said in the company. An investor of Motion Work is the RWE subsidiary Innogy.