Secure group formation protocol for a medical sensor network prototype

Designing security mechanisms such as privacy and access control for medical sensor networks is a challenging task; as such systems may be operated very frequently, at a quick pace, and at times in emergency situations. Understandably, clinicians hold extra unproductive tasks in low regard, and experience from user workshops and observations of clinicians at work on a hospital ward show that if the security mechanisms are not well designed, the technology is either rejected altogether, or they are circumvented leaving the system wide open to attacks [1]. Our work targets the problem of designing wireless sensors to be both secure and usable by exploring different solutions on a fully functional prototype platform. In this paper, we present an Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) based protocol, which offers fully secure sensor set-up in a few seconds on standard (Telos) hardware. We evaluate this protocol's time and energy consumption, and its impact on the battery lifetime.

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