A General Purpose Data and Query Privacy Preserving Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are composed of a large number of spatially distributed devices equipped with sensing technology and interlinked via radio signaling. A WSN deployed for monitoring purposes can provide a ubiquitous view over the monitored environment. However, the management of collected data is very resource-consuming and raises security and privacy issues. In this paper, we propose a privacy preserving protocol for collecting aggregated data from WSNs. The protocol relies on the Onion Routing technique to provide uniformly distributed network traffic and confine the knowledge a foreign actor can gain from monitoring messages traveling the network. Our solution employs the computing power of nodes in the network by conveying them general-purpose computer code for in-situ processing and aggregation of data sourcing from multiple sensor nodes. We complement our work with a simulation of the proposed solution using the network simulator ns-3. Results of the simulation give an overview of the scalability of the solution and highlight potential constraints.

A WSN Framework for Privacy Aware Indoor Location

“…The mentioned aggregates could provide an overview of the monitored environment; however, they are not sufficiently descriptive for indoor location requirements. In this study, we propose a data acquisition layer based on the General Purpose Data and Query Privacy Preserving Protocol described in [13]. This technique allows the retrieval of arbitrary aggregated data without disclosing which nodes contribute to the data retrieval.…”

“…In this section, we present the data acquisition layer, consisting of the General Purpose Data and Query Privacy Preserving Protocol described in [13]. The communication protocol presented in [13] is characterized by messages containing a layered object made of several encryption layers similar to the one employed in the onion routing [46].…”

“…In this section, we present the data acquisition layer, consisting of the General Purpose Data and Query Privacy Preserving Protocol described in [13]. The communication protocol presented in [13] is characterized by messages containing a layered object made of several encryption layers similar to the one employed in the onion routing [46]. Each layer of the layered object contains the IP address of the next receiver of the message, and since layers are produced using public key cryptography [47], the message must travel through the exact sequence of nodes defined at message construction.…”

“…In addition to the layered object, messages specified by the communication protocol in [13] include a payload. The payload consists of computer code specified in a generalpurpose programming language and a binary string that stores an aggregate.…”

“…However, the walking gait analysis [12] requires large amounts of data from individual users, and in our privacy-aware framework, the raw data do not leave the source sensor, therefore inhibiting similar attempts. • A secure WSN with anonymous source location and sensor network identity: We propose a new querying protocol for WSN, which uses multi-layer encryption to conceal the network identity of sensor nodes, obfuscating the computation described in [13]. The protocol relies on particular messages similar to those used in the onion routing [14] to convey edge data processing information to sensor nodes and privately retrieve data.…”