Abstract
A novel network paradigm of mobile edge computing, namely TMWSNs (two-tiered mobile wireless sensor networks), has just been proposed by researchers in recent years for its high scalability and robustness. However, only a few works have considered the security of TMWSNs. In fact, the storage nodes, which are located at the upper layer of TMWSNs, are prone to being attacked by the adversaries because they play a key role in bridging both the sensor nodes and the sink, which may lead to the disclosure of all data stored on them as well as some other potentially devastating results. In this paper, we make a comparative study on two typical schemes, EVTopk and VTMSN, which have been proposed recently for securing Top-k queries in TMWSNs, through both theoretical analysis and extensive simulations, aiming at finding out their disadvantages and advancements. We find that both schemes unsatisfactorily raise communication costs. Specifically, the extra communication cost brought about by transmitting the proof information uses up more than 40% of the total communication cost between the sensor nodes and the storage nodes, and 80% of that between the storage nodes and the sink. We discuss the corresponding reasons and present our suggestions, hoping that it will inspire the researchers researching this subject.
Highlights
As the Internet of Things [1,2,3,4] and the upcoming 5G communications [5] quickly develops, a paradigm shift is occurring from centralized mobile cloud computing [6] toward mobile edge computing (MEC) [7]
We reveal the essence of the ideas in both VTMSN and EVTopk, and describe their fundamental principles on how to achieve integrity validation of query results of spatial-temporal Top-k queries in tiered mobile wireless sensor networks (TMWSNs)
We find that the proof information in both schemes use a large part of the total information in the report packets sent from the sensor nodes to the storage nodes, as well as the information in the query results sent from the storage nodes to the sink
Summary
As the Internet of Things [1,2,3,4] and the upcoming 5G communications [5] quickly develops, a paradigm shift is occurring from centralized mobile cloud computing [6] toward mobile edge computing (MEC) [7]. The motivations of this paper are two-fold: It is a much more challenging problem to secure spatial-temporal Top-k queries in a mobile scenario than a static one in two-tiered wireless sensor networks, since malicious storage nodes may return false and/or incomplete Top-k query results to the sink with many more attacking options in a mobile scenario than a static one. We reveal the essence of the ideas in both VTMSN and EVTopk, and describe their fundamental principles on how to achieve integrity validation of query results of spatial-temporal Top-k queries in TMWSNs. We present our theoretical analysis about the performances of the two schemes on security and energy efficiency, and point out their advancements and shortcomings in theory.
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