US Patent 11349926 Protected smart contracts for managing internet of things devices

A system includes Internet of things (IOT) devices that are paired with corresponding edge computers. Smart contracts are generated for edge computers, and deployed in a blockchain. Upon receipt of a message, a smart contract compares a sender of the message to a designated owner of the smart contract. The smart contract has a privilege checker that allows a message from the owner of the smart contract to initiate execution of a function that modifies a variable of the smart contract, but prevents messages from non-owners from initiating execution of the function.