A Pseudopacket Scheduling Algorithm for Protecting Source Location Privacy in the Internet of Things

Abstract

The massive growth in interconnected devices from a multiplicity of networks goes hand-in-hand with the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. As a critical component of the IoT, sensor networks have become ubiquitous and widely used in various application domains. However, open-ended wireless communication brings severe threats to user privacy and security. Attackers from outside the network can trace back along the data stream to capture the source node, which poses a significant threat to the privacy of the data source. A feasible defense method is to interfere with the attacker’s tracking process through forged data streams. However, the related traditional solutions generally have shortcomings in terms of balancing security and efficiency. Therefore, this article proposes a pseudopacket scheduling algorithm (PPSA), which aims at reasonably regulating the process of pseudopacket generation to interfere with the adversary’s tracking to the data source. The algorithm comprises three phases. First, the sink node performs geographic information acquisition and neighbor node discovery with a flood-based method. Then, the sink node uses a self-adapting proxy selection method to construct backbone routes with both randomness and low latency to receive actual packets. Finally, the nodes on both sides of the backbone routes follow a pseudopacket scheduling strategy to interfere with the adversary’s tracking of the source locations. The experimental results showcase that our proposed scheme effectively controls the additional energy consumption and transmission delays within acceptable ranges while ensuring adequate location privacy.