meshDETECT® Receives Grant of US Patent for Blockchain Wireless Services for Prisons
meshDETECT® is pleased to announce that on July 23, 2020 it was granted a new patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for U.S. Patent Number 10,694,032 entitled "Systems and Methods For Blockchain Wireless Services In a Controlled Environment."
PLANO, Texas, June 30, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- This fifth patent expands our Secure Prison Cell Phone Solutions™ intellectual property portfolio and further solidifies our position as the prime innovator in the prison mobile device space by leveraging the security, efficiency and decentralization offered by blockchain technology. The claims in this latest patent are directed toward voice and video call validation, decentralized voice and video call recording, and smart contract enabled inmate financial transactions. This patent is the intellectual property foundation of Aisto™, our new blockchain powered inmate mobile device solution.
Co-inventor Michael Byrne stated, "The benefits of security, immutability, transparency and efficiency inherent in blockchain are among the reasons blockchain is rapidly being adopted across a myriad of industries including energy, finance, healthcare and logistics. These benefits are especially important for the corrections industry."
In the traditional telecommunications systems of correctional facilities, the administrative costs involved in call and video recording as well as associated metadata are limited by the number of communication kiosks in the prison. This number is typically small and therefore makes it reasonable to maintain such administration via a single conventional, centralized computing center, whether located on-site in the correctional facility or in a remote site.
However, as the number of these telecommunication devices and the complexity of the system increases with the introduction of mobile communication devices, such as tablets, to prisoners, the cost and complexity involved in capturing recordings and metadata as well as monitoring permissions increases significantly.
Blockchain technology deployment in a multi-path wireless network can apportion the requirements of a telecommunication system across many distributed nodes. Blockchain will therefore the reduce the burden on the processing, network, and storage systems of a correctional facility. By enabling the mobile devices within a prison as blockchain and multi-path wireless network nodes, not only can much of the computing requirements be offloaded from a facility's centralized systems, but the facility can safely and securely maintain the same control and oversight as previously available.
Transaction record-keeping, recording and regulation of inmate mobile device use can now be distributed, with security and computing power increasing as a system grows. By implementing a blockchain ledger among mobile nodes via a mesh network in the closed system of a correctional facility, not only is the computing power and network access distributed across these nodes, but the control and records of any transactions within a system may also be distributed and replicated. This structure promotes redundancies and fail-safe options not previously available in the traditional centralized architecture.
A distributed blockchain system creates a more permanent and unalterable record than a single database could, while allowing more nodes to function simultaneously. Distributed systems promoted by blockchain technology combined with mesh networking provide correctional facilities the potential to distribute management of the system by giving the nodes the ability to regulate themselves anonymously from each other but transparently to those administering the correctional facility. Not only can more devices be supported, but they can be supported with fewer resources, enhanced redundancy, and increased security.
Blockchain may also reduce the costs of running a secure network, which is important in publicly funded institutions such as correctional facilities. Because blockchain verifies trustworthiness, a centralized server does not need to handle this task. The friction of transactions is reduced, promoting cost and time savings.
Key benefits of this system include providing for the wireless communication device to record a voice or video session instead of at the central database, allowing inmates and their families to schedule and pay for voice and video calls via a smart contract, as well as allowing nodes on the network to validate and control permissions, rules and transactions.
Brian Byrne, Managing Partner of meshIP, LLC and co-inventor commented, "With this fifth patent, we leverage the blockchain to enhance the key benefits and mitigate the major challenges of the growing role of mobile devices in correctional environments. There continue to be many industry announcements regarding inmate tablet deployments in prisons and jails, but we believe we are the first and only inmate communications services company innovating on the blockchain to secure and manage these inmate mobile devices. This patent is an important addition to our existing intellectual property which covers the four essential pillars of secure wireless inmate device deployment and management – system, application, device management and device security"
To learn more about our blockchain wireless service as well as our other inmate communication services, email us at [email protected] or visit http://www.meshdetect.com
SOURCE meshDETECT
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