Title: Energy-efficient distributed authorisation server (DAS) placement for sensor networks

Authors: Sibabrata Ray, Danyang Zhang, Kevin Kwiat

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA. ' Communications Technology Program, York College, The City University of New York, Jamaica, NY 11451, USA. ' Air Force Research Lab/IFGA, 525 Brooks Road, Rome, NY 13441-4505, USA

Abstract: Sensor networks are resource-constrained environments. Further, sensor networks are not physically secured, that is, sensor nodes may be physically captured and reverse engineered by the attacker. The goal of our research is to design algorithms for placing energy-efficient distributed authorisation servers (DASs) resilient to logical attack (hacking) and physical attack. A common method for achieving longer life for a sensor network is to deploy redundant nodes and to activate only a subset of nodes at one point of time. To the best of our knowledge, nobody addressed the problem of choosing the nodes to be activated. In this paper, we designed a set of algorithms to choose the set of nodes for forming the DAS between the command and the control centres (CCCs) and sensors collecting data. Our algorithms maximise the time required to compromise the security as well as to reduce the energy requirement for both authorisation and communication.

Keywords: sensor networks; sensor network security; wireless security; sensor placement; distributed authorisation server; energy efficiency; high performance networking; high performance computing; hacking; node selection; adaptability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHPCN.2004.008348

International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking, 2004 Vol.1 No.4, pp.193 - 202

Published online: 07 Dec 2005 *

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