Abstract
Preserving the location privacy of users in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) is a significant challenge for location information. Most of the conventional Location Privacy Preservation (LPP) methods protect the privacy of the user while sacrificing the capability of retrieval on the server-side, that is, legitimate devices except the user itself cannot retrieve the location in most cases. On the other hand, applications such as geographic routing and location verification require the retrievability of locations on the access point, the base station, or a trusted server. Besides, with the development of networking technology such as caching technology, it is expected that more and more distributed location-based services will be deployed, which results in the risk of leaking location information in the wireless channel. Therefore, preserving location privacy in wireless channels without losing the retrievability of the real location is essential. In this paper, by focusing on the wireless channel, we propose a novel LPP enabled by distance (ranging result), angle, and the idea of spatial cloaking (DSC-LPP) to preserve location privacy in MANETs. DSC-LPP runs without the trusted third party nor the traditional cryptography tools in the line-of-sight environment, and it is suitable for MANETs such as the Internet of Things, even when the communication and computation capabilities of users are limited. Qualitative evaluation indicates that DSC-LPP can reduce the communication overhead when compared with k-anonymity, and the computation overhead of DSC-LPP is limited when compared with conventional cryptography. Meanwhile, the retrievability of DSC-LPP is higher than that of k-anonymity and differential privacy. Simulation results show that with the proper design of spatial divisions and parameters, other legitimate devices in a MANET can correctly retrieve the location of users with a high probability when adopting DSC-LPP.
Highlights
Location information makes wireless devices become location-aware data collection instruments, such as smartphones in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) or vehicles in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) [1]
The Access Point (AP) needs to retrieve the specific location of the user, and it can estimate the distance between the user and itself via ranging technologies such as Time of Flight (TOF), Time of Arrival (TOA) [26], Received Signal Strength (RSS) [27], etc
We proposed DSC-Location Privacy Preservation (LPP) based on distance, angle, and the idea of spatial cloaking
Summary
Location information makes wireless devices become location-aware data collection instruments, such as smartphones in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) or vehicles in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) [1]. The applications of location information include Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS) [2,3], geographic routing [4], Location-Based Service (LBS) [5], Online Social Networks (OSN) [6], Internet of Things (IoT) [7], mobile Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) [8], etc. By focusing on the wireless channel, we propose an LPP scheme for MANETs based on Distance, angle, and the idea of Spatial Cloaking (DSC-LPP) to prevent eavesdropping attack. Compared with conventional cryptography and k-anonymity methods, DSC-LPP can reduce the overhead of communication and computation when preserving location privacy in the wireless channel, and the retrievability of the user’s location on the server-side is retained. This is the first work that can protect location privacy in the wireless channel based on distance and ranging, while the retrievability of users’ locations on the server-side can be retained without conventional cryptography.
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