Security and Privacy in a Sensor-Based Search and Rescue System

Abstract

With the emergence of small devices equipped with wireless communication, several sophisticated systems for search and rescue have been proposed and developed. However, a key obstacle in large deployment of these systems is vulnerability to users’ security and privacy. On one hand, search and rescue systems need to collect as much information about a user’s location and movement as possible to locate that user in a timely manner. On the other hand, this very capability can be misused by adversaries to stalk a person, which in turn drives users away from using such a system. This paper describes the design, implementation and performance of a security and privacy framework for SenSearch, which is a sensor-based search and rescue system for people in emergency situation in wilderness areas. This framework has been carefully built by employing a combination of symmetric and asymmetric key cryptography to meet the constraints of resource-limited devices and short time intervals during which most security operations have to be performed.