A Dynamic Fake Source Algorithm for Source Location Privacy in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Original citation:Bradbury, Matthew S., Leeke, Matthew and Jhumka, Arshad (2015) A dynamic fake source algorithm for source location privacy in wireless sensor networks. Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way.Publisher's statement: "© 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting /republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works." A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the 'permanent WRAP url' above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. Abstract-Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are commonly used in asset monitoring applications, where it is often desirable for the location of the asset being monitored to be kept private. The source location privacy (SLP) problem involves protecting the location of a WSN source node from an attacker who is attempting to locate it. Among the most promising approaches to the SLP problem is the use of fake sources, with much existing research demonstrating their efficacy. Despite the effectiveness of the approach, the most effective algorithms providing SLP require network and situational knowledge that makes their deployment impractical in many contexts. In this paper, we develop a novel dynamic fake sources-based algorithm for SLP. We show that the algorithm provides state-of-the-art levels of location privacy under practical operational assumptions.

Towards fake sources for source location privacy in wireless sensor networks with multiple sources

“…Similarly, Figures 2(b), 2(c) and 2(f) show that the capture ratio is either 100% or close to it for all networks with two sources, implying that the addition of a further source has done little to hinder the attacker in their pursuit of a source capture. The variation in network traffic caused by multiple sources can produce a push-pull effect on that attacker, similar to that observed in [22], that results in less informed decision making. This effect can be seen in Figure 2(c), where the attacker occasionally fails to make a capture in a two source network, leading to a capture ratio of less than 100%.…”

“…We assume that the attacker has the capability to detect the direction of message arrival and and a large amount of memory to keep track of information such as messages that have been heard. This is commensurate with the attacker models used in [5], [21], [22]. Our aim in providing SLP is to make using the context of messages too expensive for attackers, such that they instead choose to perform alternate attacks such as a brute force search of the network.…”

“…TOSSIM is a discrete event simulator capable of accurately modelling sensor nodes and the modes of communications between them. The fake source protocol implemented was the adaptive algorithm proposed in [22], since this provided best-in-class privacy whilst obviating the need for an extensive exploration of parameters. A square grid network layout of size n × n was used, where n ∈ {11, 15, 21}, i.e., networks with 121, 225, and 441 sensor nodes.…”

“…A square grid network layout of size n × n was used, where n ∈ {11, 15, 21}, i.e., networks with 121, 225, and 441 sensor nodes. These network sizes where chosen to maintain comparability with previous work in source location privacy [22]. The node neighbourhoods were generated using Link Layer Model with the parameters shown in Table I, which gives a small chance of asymmetric links occurring.…”

Source Location Privacy-Aware Data Aggregation Scheduling for Wireless Sensor Networks

“…Another core principle is utilising fake sources, whereby they send padded and encrypted messages that are indistinguishable from those sent by the real source to lure the attacker in the wrong direction. Initially discounted due to suspected poor performance [4], it has since been shown that utilising fake sources can be a viable alternative to phantom routing [10,11,12]. Other works have also combined both principles into single protocols [13,14].…”