Exploiting Context-Awareness to Enhance Source-Location Privacy in Wireless Sensor Networks

TitleExploiting Context-Awareness to Enhance Source-Location Privacy in Wireless Sensor Networks
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2011
AuthorsR. Rios, and J. Lopez
JournalThe Computer Journal
Volume54
Pagination1603-1615
Date PublishedSept 2011
PublisherOxford University Press
ISSN Number0010-4620
KeywordsContext-Awareness, Location Privacy, wireless sensor networks
Abstract

The source-location privacy problem in Wireless Sensor Networks has been traditionally tackled by the creation of random routes for every packet transmitted from the source nodes to the base station. These schemes provide a considerable protection level at a high cost in terms of message delivery time and energy consumption. This overhead is due to the fact that the data routing process is done in a blind way, without knowledge about the location of the attacker. In this work we propose the Context-Aware Location Privacy (CALP) approach, which takes advantage of the ability of sensor nodes to perceive the presence of a mobile adversary in their vicinity in order to transmit data packets in a more energy-efficient and privacy-preserving manner. In particular, we apply the concepts of CALP to the development of a shortest-path CALP routing algorithm. A permissive and a strict version of the protocol are studied for different adversarial models and the proposed schemes are evaluated through simulation experiments in terms of privacy protection and energy consumption. Finally, we present the conclusions of the paper as well as possible extensions of this work.

DOI10.1093/comjnl/bxr055
Citation KeyRios2011b
Paper File: 
https://nics.uma.es:8082/sites/default/files/papers/Rios2011b_0.pdf

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