A Distance-Based Data-Mule Scheduling Technique for Lesser Nodal Delay in Wireless Sensor Network

Nodal delay in wireless sensor network is an indisputable factor in the medium of communication. Factor such as changeability of communication devices, network topologies, packet-sizes, and transmission rate demands to develop data-mule queue scheduling technique. Our proposed data-mule scheduling technique accomplish this through simulations using standard software written in C# by controlling data-mule schedules that collects data from all the nodes connected to the hop. The scheme identifies the hierarchical positions of static source nodes and the distance of mobile source nodes from the hop with rescheduling based on the newly acquired distances. Source nodes applied with data-mule scheduling technique resulted to lower nodal delay. Transmission of packet-data is efficiently and effectively improved

Using data mules to preserve source location privacy in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have many promising applications for monitoring critical regions, such as in military surveillance and target tracking. In such applications, privacy of the location of the source sensor is of utmost importance as its compromise may reveal the location of the object being monitored. Traditional security mechanisms, like encryption, have proven to be ineffective as location of the source can also be revealed by analysis of the direction of traffic flow in the network. In this paper, we investigate the source-location privacy issue. We first propose a semi-global eavesdropping attack model which we show as being more realistic than the local or global eavesdropping attack model discussed in literature. In this model, we use a linear-regression based traffic analysis technique and show that it is effective in inferring the location of the data source under an existing source-location preserving technique. To measure source location privacy against this semi-global eavesdropping, we define an α-angle anonymity model. Additionally, we adapt the conventional function of data mules to design a new protocol for securing source location privacy, called the Mules-Saving-Source (MSS) protocol, which provides α-angle anonymity. We analyze the delay incurred by using data mules in our protocol and examine the association between privacy preservation and data delay in our protocol through simulation. © 2012 Springer-Verlag

Using data mules to preserve source location privacy in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have many promising applications for monitoring critical regions, like military surveillance and wildlife monitoring. In such applications, it is critical to protect the location of the source sensor that generates the data, as exposure of this information usually reveals the location of the object being monitored. Traditional security mechanisms, like encryption, have been proven to be ineffective as the location of the source can also be revealed by analyzing the traffic flow in the network. In this paper, we investigate the source-location privacy issue. We first propose a realistic semi-global eavesdropping attack model and show its effectiveness in compromising an existing source-location preserving technique. Furthermore, to measure source location privacy against the semi-global eavesdropper, we define a model for α-angle anonymity. Additionally, we design a new protocol called Mule-Saving-Source (MSS) that preserves α-angle anonymity by adapting the conventional function of data mules. We theoretically analyze the delay incurred by using data mules in MSS, and we examine via extensive simulations the trade-off between the delay and privacy preservation under different data mule mobility patterns. We categorize the delay in MSS as being caused primarily due to the buffering time at the source sensor and the data mules. Motivated by this observation, we propose two modifications to MSS, Mule-Saving-Source-Shortest Path (MSS-SP) and Mule-Saving-Source-Two Level (MSS-TL), both aimed at reducing the total delay by reducing the buffering time at the data mule and source respectively. Through theoretical analysis, we examine the delay in the proposed modifications and evaluate their performance with the MSS protocol using a comprehensive set of simulations. Furthermore, to study the impact of the mobility model of the data mules on the MSS protocol, we compare the performance of the MSS protocol by changing the mobility model of data mules to a Random Waypoint based model. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Fortified End-to-End Location Privacy and Anonymity in Wireless Sensor Networks: a Modular Approach

Wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of many hosts called sensors. These sensors can sense a phenomenon (motion, temperature, humidity, average, max, min, etc.) and represent what they sense in a form of data. There are many applications for WSNs; including object tracking and monitoring where in most of the cases these objects need protection. In these applications, data privacy itself might not be as important as the privacy of source location. In addition to the source location privacy, sink location privacy should also be provided. Providing an efficient end-to-end privacy solution would be a challenging task to achieve due to the open nature of the WSN. The key schemes needed for end-to-end location privacy are anonymity, observability, capture likelihood, and safety period. We extend this work to allow for countermeasures against multi-local and global adversaries. We present a network model that is protected against a sophisticated threat model: passive /active and local/multi-local/global attacks. This work provides a solution for end-to-end anonymity and location privacy as well. We will introduce a framework called fortified anonymous communication (FAC) protocol for WSN

Energy aware and privacy preserving protocols for ad hoc networks with applications to disaster management

Disasters can have a serious impact on the functioning of communities and societies. Disaster management aims at providing efficient utilization of resources during pre-disaster (e.g. preparedness and prevention) and post-disaster (e.g. recovery and relief) scenarios to reduce the impact of disasters. Wireless sensors have been extensively used for early detection and prevention of disasters. However, the sensor\u27s operating environment may not always be congenial to these applications. Attackers can observe the traffic flow in the network to determine the location of the sensors and exploit it. For example, in intrusion detection systems, the information can be used to identify coverage gaps and avoid detection. Data source location privacy preservation protocols were designed in this work to address this problem. Using wireless sensors for disaster preparedness, recovery and relief operations can have high deployment costs. Making use of wireless devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets) widely available among people in the affected region is a more practical approach. Disaster preparedness involves dissemination of information among the people to make them aware of the risks they will face in the event of a disaster and how to actively prepare for them. The content is downloaded by the people on their smartphones and tablets for ubiquitous access. As these devices are primarily constrained by their available energy, this work introduces an energy-aware peer-to-peer file sharing protocol for efficient distribution of the content and maximizing the lifetime of the devices. Finally, the ability of the wireless devices to build an ad hoc network for capturing and collecting data for disaster relief and recovery operations was investigated. Specifically, novel energy-adaptive mechanisms were designed for autonomous creation of the ad hoc network, distribution of data capturing task among the devices, and collection of data with minimum delay --Abstract, page iii

Source location privacy in wireless sensor networks under practical scenarios : routing protocols, parameterisations and trade-offs

As wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been applied across a spectrum of application domains, source location privacy (SLP) has emerged as a significant issue, particularly in security-critical situations. In seminal work on SLP, several protocols were proposed as viable approaches to address the issue of SLP. However, most state-of-the-art approaches work under specific network assumptions. For example, phantom routing, one of the most popular routing protocols for SLP, assumes a single source. On the other hand, in practical scenarios for SLP, this assumption is not realistic, as there will be multiple data sources. Other issues of practical interest include network configurations. Thus, thesis addresses the impact of these practical considerations on SLP. The first step is the evaluation of phantom routing under various configurations, e.g., multiple sources and network configurations. The results show that phantom routing does not scale to handle multiple sources while providing high SLP at the expense of low messages yield. Thus, an important issue arises as a result of this observation that the need for a routing protocol that can handle multiple sources. As such, a novel parametric routing protocol is proposed, called phantom walkabouts, for SLP for multi-source WSNs. A large-scale experiments are conducted to evaluate the efficiency of phantom walkabouts. The main observation is that phantom walkabouts can provide high level of SLP at the expense of energy and/or data yield. To deal with these trade-offs, a framework that allows reasoning about trade-offs needs to develop. Thus, a decision theoretic methodology is proposed that allows reasoning about these trade-offs. The results showcase the viability of this methodology via several case studies

Near optimal routing protocols for source location privacy in wireless sensor networks: modelling, design and evaluation

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are collections of small computing devices that are used to monitor valuable assets such as endangered animals. As WSNs communicate wirelessly they leak information to malicious eavesdroppers. When monitoring assets it is important to provide Source Location Privacy (SLP), where the location of the message source must be kept hidden. Many SLP protocols have been developed by designing a protocol using intuition before evaluating its performance. However, this does not provide insight into how to develop optimal approaches. This thesis will present an alternate approach where the SLP problem is modelled using different techniques to give an optimal output. However, as this optimal output is typically for a restricted scenario, algorithms that trade optimality for generality are subsequently designed. Four main contributions are presented. First, an analysis is performed based on entropy and divergence to gain insight into how to reduce the information an attacker gains via the use of competing paths, and ways to compare the information loss of arbitrary routing protocols. Secondly, the SLP problem is modelled using Integer Linear Programming. The model result guides the design of a generic protocol called ILPRouting that groups messages together to reduce the moves an attacker makes. Thirdly, a timing analysis of when events occur is used to dynamically determine fake source parameters for the Dynamic and DynamicSPR algorithms. These fake sources lure the attacker to their location instead of the real source. Finally, the first SLP-aware duty cycle is investigated, and implemented for DynamicSPR to make it more energy efficient. These techniques are evaluated through simulations and deployments on WSN testbeds to demonstrate their effectiveness