Boosting Base-Station Anonymity in Wireless Sensor Networks through Illusive Multiple-Sink Traffic
Nikolaos Baroutis, Mohamed Younis · 2016
In applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), all data packets are directed towards a single base-station (BS) over multi-hop routes. The BS is usually responsible for processing the collected data and interfacing the WSN to remote users. The continuous flow of packets towards the BS enables the adversary to analyze the traffic and uncover the BS position. In this paper, we present a technique to counter such a threat by creating the illusion that many base stations are deployed into the WSN. The basic idea is to introduce multiple deceptive relay nodes that generate redundant packets such that the traffic pattern of the network is altered to implicate the presence of multiple data sinks. We present an algorithm that forms a load balanced routing tree (LBRT) for each sink. LBRTs are used to determine the deceptive relay nodes, define the deceptive packet generation rate and route the real data. The simulation results confirm that our proposed countermeasure effectively enhances the location privacy of the BS without significant impact on the network's performance and lifetime.