Load-conscious maximization of base-station location privacy in wireless sensor networks

In various applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), sensor nodes forward data packets towards an in-situ base-station (BS) over multi-hop routes. The BS not only collects and analyzes the incoming data, but also interfaces the WSN to a higher authority. The unique role of the BS attracts adversary's attention since it can be a single point of failure for the WSN. An adversary that seeks to diminish the network utility can apply traffic analysis techniques in order to uncover the sink of all traffic (i.e., the BS) and target it with denial of service attacks. In this paper, we present a technique for preserving location privacy of the BS. Our technique injects deceptive transmissions aiming to even the traffic density across the network and make the BS undistinguishable. We highlight the trade-off between location privacy and network's performance/lifetime, and show how our technique strikes a balance between conflicting metrics. The simulation results confirm that our proposed traffic analysis countermeasure effectively boosts the location privacy of the BS without a significant impact on the network's performance and lifetime. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.