Title: Protected pointers in wireless sensor networks

Authors: Gianluca Dini; Lanfranco Lopriore

Addresses: Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione, Università di Pisa, via G. Caruso 16, Pisa 56126, Italy ' Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione, Università di Pisa, via G. Caruso 16, Pisa 56126, Italy

Abstract: With reference to a distributed architecture consisting of sensor nodes connected by wireless links in an arbitrary network topology, we consider a segment-oriented implementation of the single address space paradigm of memory reference. In our approach, applications consist of active entities called components, which are distributed in the network nodes. A component accesses a given segment by presenting a handle for this segment. A handle is a form of pointer protected cryptographically. Handles allow an effective implementation of communications between components, and key replacement. The number of messages generated by the execution of the communication primitives is independent of the network size. The key replacement mechanism is well suited to reliable application rekeying over an unreliable network.

Keywords: cryptographic keys; key replacement; protected pointers; single address space; symmetric key cryptography; wireless sensor networks; WSNs; network security.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2017.082518

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2017 Vol.24 No.3, pp.204 - 212

Received: 14 Mar 2014
Accepted: 20 Oct 2014
Published online: 28 Feb 2017 *

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