Public Key Cryptography in Sensor Networks - Revisited

The common perception of public key cryptography is that it is complex, slow and power hungry, and as such not at all suitable for use in ultra-low power environments like wireless sensor networks. It is therefore common practice to emulate the asymmetry of traditional public key based cryptographic services through a set of protocols [1] using symmetric key based message authentication codes (MACs). Although the low computational complexity of MACs is advantageous, the protocol layer requires time synchronization between devices on the network and a significant amount of overhead for communication and temporary storage. The requirement for a general purpose CPU to implement these protocols as well as their complexity makes them prone to vulnerabilities and practically eliminates all the advantages of using symmetric key techniques in the first place. In this paper we challenge the basic assumptions about public key cryptography in sensor networks which are based on a traditional sof...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: ESAS
• Authors: Gunnar Gaubatz, Jens-Peter Kaps, Berk Sunar
• Keywords: ESAS 2004, Public Key, Public Key Cryptography, Symmetric Key