Privacy-Enhancing Security Mechanisms - Research Proposal Example

There also exist some privacy-preserving protocols that are being widely used in different technologies, such as, wireless sensor networks, mobile computing, and data mining operations. In this paper, we will discuss the technique to design a reliable and efficient privacy-preserving scheme in order to ensure increased security of data over the network. Problem Statement The problem statement for the research paper is: "Design and analysis of privacy-preserving network and cryptographic protocols" Conceptual Framework Aim of the Research In realistic networked environments, data security is the main focus of the management.

Although there are several protocols and security mechanisms available for the protection of sensitive information, yet the security of the networked environments cannot be fully guaranteed. Generation of a reliable secret key can play a considerable role in this regard which should encrypt and decrypt the data while ensuring data integrity and authentication. There is a need to design and implement privacy-enhanced cryptographic protocols using private handshaking, which should be able to provide optimum security to the sensitive information being transferred using mobile and messaging services.

We will focus on designing a new pair wise key management scheme, which will include the properties of digital signatures and blindness along with the use of private handshakes. The key management scheme will make use of Boneh and Shacham's group signature scheme to ensure privacy and security in wireless networks. Literature Review Das and Giri state that pair wise key establishment enables sensor nodes to communicate securely in a sensor network with other nodes with the use of cryptographic techniques.

Bista and Chang state, “Many wireless sensor network (WSN) applications require privacy-preserving aggregation of sensor data during transmission from the source nodes to the sink node”. Privacy is integral for wireless networks and instant messaging. Patil and Kobsa state, “Inadequate support for managing privacy could lead to suboptimal use of IM and thereby undermine its benefits”. Privacy-preserving network protocols play an important role in ensuring securing of data being transferred over the network.

Privacy-preserving authentications achieve traditional goals as well as privacy of the authenticator and the verifier (Xu and Yung). Two of the main Privacy-Preserving Network Protocols include TOR and Off-the-record messaging. Off-the-record messaging techniques will be used because it enables private conversations over the wireless networks using the concept of encryption, authentication, deniability, and perfect forward secrecy. Cryptographic protocols will also be an important part of the research because they use such algorithms which ensure security of information over the network.

“For the past three decades, a wide variety of cryptographic protocols have been proposed to solve secure communication problems” (Shin). “Modern cryptography is concerned with the construction of systems that are robust against malicious attempts” (Goldreich). Cryptographic protocoal serve good when used in combinations, such as, ? 1, some ? 2s. “Although cryptographic protocols are typically analyzed in isolation, they are used in combinations” (Guttman). Lindell and Pinkas state, “Cryptographers seek to make secure protocols as efficient as possible in order to minimize the performance gap between secure and naive