Security, Privacy, and Trust for Pervasive Computing Applications

Abstract

Pervasive computing has progressed significantly during this decade due to the developments and advances in portable, low-cost, and light-weight devices along with the emergence of short range and low-power wireless communication networks. Pervasive computing focuses on combining computing and communications with the surrounding physical environment to make computing and communication transparent to the users in day-to-day activities. In pervasive computing, numerous, casually accessible, often invisible, frequently mobile or embedded devices form an ad-hoc network that occasionally connects to fixed networks structure too. These pervasive computing devices often collect information about the surrounding environment using various sensors. Pervasive computing has the inherent disadvantages of slow, expensive connections, frequent line disconnections, limited host bandwidth, location dependent data, and so forth. These challenges make pervasive computing applications more vulnerable to various security-related threats. However, traditional security measures do not fit well in pervasive computing applications. Since location and context are key attributes of pervasive computing applications, privacy issues need to be handled in a sophisticated manner. The devices in a pervasive computing network leave and join in an ad-hoc manner. This device behavior creates a need for new trust models for pervasive computing applications. In this chapter, we address the challenges and requirements of security, privacy, and trust for pervasive applications. We also discuss the state-of-the-art of pervasive security, privacy, and trust along with some open issues.