BitDeposit: Deterring attacks and abuses of cloud computing services through economic measures

Dependability in cloud computing applications can be negatively affected by various attacks or service abuses. To come ahead of this threat, we propose an economic measure to deter attacks and various service abuses in cloud computing applications. Our proposed defense is based on requiring a service user to pay a small deposit, using digital currency, before invoking the service. Once they are done using the service, and there has been no detected abuse or attack, the deposit is paid back by the service provider to the service user. If an attack or an abuse is detected, the service user is not paid back and the service provider gets to keep the deposit. We propose the use of micropayments with a decentralized nature and small transaction fees, such as the Bitcoin digital currency. Moreover, thanks to the existence of money exchanges which convert the Bitcoin currency to real world currency, service providers can recoup loses when they exchange the confiscated deposits for real world currency.