FRESNEL: FedeRatEd Secure sensor NEtwork Laboratory
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Computer Science
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Ian Brown (Principal Investigator) | |
| Niki Trigoni (Co-Investigator) |
Publications
De Souza T
(2013)
Security and Privacy in Communication Networks
O'Hanlon, P.
(2014)
KEMF: Key Management for Federated Sensor Networks
in Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks
Wright, J
(2010)
Privacy Challenges in Delay-Tolerant and Restricted-Route Networks
in Proceedings of the 2nd Extreme Workshop on Communication
| Description | The privacy and security component of the research in this project have focused on the means for gathering and aggregating data from multiple sources in a way that protects the privacy of individual sources of data. To achieve this, we have developed and demonstrated attacks that are effective against all known mechanisms for privacy-preserving data aggregation in wireless sensor networks, and developed new aggregation mechanisms that, partially or fully, mitigate our attacks. A second strand of research has focused on developing protocols to communicate securely between wireless devices. Due to their restricted capabilities and power, our research has produced new protocols for secure wireless communications that are fast, flexible for multiple usage scenarios, and low in their power requirements. |
| Exploitation Route | Aspects of this research are directly applicable to the development of improved key exchange mechanisms in future wireless network designs. The protocols developed in the research, accompanied by proof-of-concept implementations, could be directly applied. The privacy-preserving data aggregation attacks and mechanisms are less directly applicable at this stage, but present a clear route towards improved privacy mechanisms in future systems. The protocols for secure communications, specifically fast key-establishment for federated wireless networks, provide equivalent levels of security to existing mechanisms whilst reducing time for setup and power requirements. Implementation of these protocols in new productions systems would be a relatively direct route of exploitation. Similarly, the protocols for privacy-preserving data aggregation provide protection against a class of privacy threats. Due to the nature of such aggregation, however, these protocols result in a customisable loss of accuracy in results. It seems likely that, for direct exploitation, the implications of this loss and the need for particularly forms of privacy protection would need further study. In an academic context, this research has demonstrated attacks against existing state-of-the-art privacy-preserving data aggregation mechanisms, as well as providing partial solutions to these attacks. At the same time, this research has been evaluated in the context of differential privacy, a highly active strand of privacy research, and have led to new insights in the ways that this approach to privacy is applied. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
| URL | http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=63 |
| Description | The key findings from this project have contributed to the scientific literature surrounding wireless sensor networks and privacy of public information. The research work is still sufficiently new that it has not seen adoption or deployment in practise, making the major use in contribution to the field. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2011 |