Context-based Pseudonym Changing Scheme for Vehicular Adhoc Networks

Vehicular adhoc networks allow vehicles to share their information for safety and traffic efficiency. However, sharing information may threaten the driver privacy because it includes spatiotemporal information and is broadcast publicly and periodically. In this paper, we propose a context-adaptive pseudonym changing scheme which lets a vehicle decide autonomously when to change its pseudonym and how long it should remain silent to ensure unlinkability. This scheme adapts dynamically based on the density of the surrounding traffic and the user privacy preferences. We employ a multi-target tracking algorithm to measure privacy in terms of traceability in realistic vehicle traces. We use Monte Carlo analysis to estimate the quality of service (QoS) of a forward collision warning application when vehicles apply this scheme. According to the experimental results, the proposed scheme provides a better compromise between traceability and QoS than a random silent period scheme.Comment: Extended version of a previous paper "K. Emara, W. Woerndl, and J. Schlichter, "Poster: Context-Adaptive User-Centric Privacy Scheme for VANET," in Proceedings of the 11th EAI International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, SecureComm'15. Dallas, TX, USA: Springer, June 2015.

A Study of IEEE 802.15.4 Security Framework for Wireless Body Area Network

A Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a collection of low-power and lightweight wireless sensor nodes that are used to monitor the human body functions and the surrounding environment. It supports a number of innovative and interesting applications, including ubiquitous healthcare and Consumer Electronics (CE) applications. Since WBAN nodes are used to collect sensitive (life-critical) information and may operate in hostile environments, they require strict security mechanisms to prevent malicious interaction with the system. In this paper, we first highlight major security requirements and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks in WBAN at Physical, Medium Access Control (MAC), Network, and Transport layers. Then we discuss the IEEE 802.15.4 security framework and identify the security vulnerabilities and major attacks in the context of WBAN. Different types of attacks on the Contention Access Period (CAP) and Contention Free Period (CFP) parts of the superframe are analyzed and discussed. It is observed that a smart attacker can successfully corrupt an increasing number of GTS slots in the CFP period and can considerably affect the Quality of Service (QoS) in WBAN (since most of the data is carried in CFP period). As we increase the number of smart attackers the corrupted GTS slots are eventually increased, which prevents the legitimate nodes to utilize the bandwidth efficiently. This means that the direct adaptation of IEEE 802.15.4 security framework for WBAN is not totally secure for certain WBAN applications. New solutions are required to integrate high level security in WBAN.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, 2 table

Assessment Instrument for Privacy Policy Content: Design and Evaluation of PPC

Privacy policies are notices posted by providers and intended to inform users about privacy practices. However, extant research shows that privacy policies are often of poor quality and do not address users’ concerns. In this paper, we design and develop PPC – a privacy policy content assessment instrument to support assessments of whether offered privacy policy content provides comprehensive information addressing users’ privacy concerns. PPC is developed based on extant research, standards, and guidelines. Application of PPC to 62 privacy policies of mHealth apps available in iOS and Android demonstrates utility of PPC and suitability of PPC as assessment instrument for privacy policy content. Contributions of our research are twofold: For research, we conduct improvement design science research contributing to design theory on assessment of privacy policy content. For practice, potential applications of PPC are support in privacy policy development and identification of deficiencies in offered privacy policies. In addition, through evaluation of PPC, we reveal an insufficient current state of mHealth app privacy policy content

Experimental Evaluation of Wireless Mesh Networks: A Case Study and Comparison

Price of WiFi devices has decreased dramatically in recent years, while new standards, as 802.11n, have multiplied its performance. This has fostered the deployment of Wireless Mesh networks (WMN), putting into practice concepts evolved from more than a decade of research in Ad Hoc networks. Nevertheless, evolution of WMN it is in its infancy, as shows the growing and diverse number of scenarios where WMN are being deployed. In these paper we analyze a particular case study of a Wireless Community Mesh Network, and we compare it with a selected experimental WMN studies found in the literature

Dynamic key ring update mechanism for mobile wireless sensor networks

Key distribution is an important issue to provide security in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Many of the key pre-distribution schemes proposed for static WSNs perform poorly when they are applied to Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks (MWSNs). In this paper, we propose Dynamic Key Ring Update (DKRU) mechanism for MWSNs. The aim of DKRU mechanism is to enable sensor nodes to update their key rings periodically during movement, by observing the frequent keys in their neighbors. Our mechanism can be used together with different key pre-distribution schemes and it helps to increase the performance of them. For the performance evaluation basis, we used our mechanism together with a location based key pre-distribution scheme. Our results show that DKRU mechanism increases the local and global connectivity when it is applied to MWSNs. Moreover, our mechanism does not cause a significant degradation in network resiliency

Factors Impacting Key Management Effectiveness in Secured Wireless Networks

The use of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) offers a cryptographic solution that can overcome many, but not all, of the MANET security problems. One of the most critical aspects of a PKI system is how well it implements Key Management. Key Management deals with key generation, key storage, key distribution, key updating, key revocation, and certificate service in accordance with security policies over the lifecycle of the cryptography. The approach supported by traditional PKI works well in fixed wired networks, but it may not appropriate for MANET due to the lack of fixed infrastructure to support the PKI. This research seeks to identify best practices in securing networks which may be applied to new network architectures

Names, addresses and identities in ambient networks

Ambient Networks interconnect independent realms that may use different local network technologies and may belong to different administrative or legal entities. At the core of these advanced internetworking concepts is a flexible naming architecture based on dynamic indirections between names, addresses and identities. This paper gives an overview of the connectivity abstractions of Ambient Networks and then describes its naming architecture in detail, comparing and contrasting them to other related next-generation network architectures

The Impact of Transmission Range Over Node Density in Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (Vanet) With Obstruction of Road Infrastructure

Vehicular ad hoc networks have the characteristic to of experiencing rapid change of network topology and mobility. Importantly, vehicular networks are required to deal with different network densities in order to provide efficient routing and data dissemination. These are some of the main characteristic that can affect the performance of the network immensely. The main issue that became the driving factor in implementing this project is the need to fill these gaps of understanding the behavioral of vehicular network performance when they are restrained by certain network condition which in this case, dealing with an obstruction of road infrastructure with varying transmission range and node density. In order to understand this problem, we identify the objectives of this project to integrate SUMO/MOVE (a vehicular traffic generator) into NS-2 to simulate a realistic vehicular ad hoc network environment and to study the performance of the network when the being conditioned into varying settings of transmission range and node density. In this project, we evaluate the network performance of VANETs in a highway environment using SUMO traffic simulator and network simulator, NS-2 which specifically focusing at the toll booths by studying the effect of varying transmission range over node density. From the simulation results, we found out that the smaller transmission range will produce less throughput, higher end to end delay and also higher normalized routing load. Particularly in vehicular ad hoc network, a constant or a fixed transmission range is not efficient enough in maintaining the connectivity in the network. This is due to the unpredictable of traffic conditions in the network. In addition to this, by dynamically changing the transmission range according to its need, will offer the advantage of power saving and increase capacity