Re-visited: Denial of service resilient access control for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

The appliance of wireless sensor networks to a broad variety of applications doubtlessly requires end-user acceptance. End-users from various computer network unrelated disciplines like for example from the agriculture sector, geography, health care, or biology will only use wireless sensor networks to support their daily work if the overall benefit beats the overhead when getting in touch with this new paradigm. This does first and foremost mean that, once the WSN is deployed, it is easy to collect data also for a technical unexperienced audience. However, the trust in the system's confidentiality and its reliability should not be underestimated. Since for end-users from various disciplines the monitored data are of highest value they will only apply WSN technology to their professional activities if a proper and safe access control mechanism to the WSN is ensured. For FIPS 140-02 level 2 or level 3 conform sensor devices we provide an access control protocol for end-users of civilian WSN applications that i) ensures access to the monitored data only for authorised parties, ii) supports user-friendly data queries and iii) is DoS resilient to save the sensor nodes' battery capacity. © 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.