A privacy technique for providing anonymity to sensor nodes in a sensor network

Abstract

Research on sensor network had been focused on security services that provide authentication, confidentiality, integrity and availability until recently, but now there is growing interest in tackling the problem of actual sensor IDs being exposed. Many techniques for providing anonymity to the source in an ad-hoc network have been proposed, but they are not suitable. Thus, a technique that is well-suited to the characteristics of sensor networks is needed. This paper, limiting the type of attack against a sensor network to that of eavesdropping, proposes a new technique for providing anonymity using Phantom ID and SMAC. The degree of anonymity provided by the proposed technique was analyzed using an entropy-based modeling technique. The results showed that the anonymity is high when the proposed technique is used. The key factor responsible for the improved anonymity had to do with disguising the sensor ID so that it cant be found easily. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.