Research On A Reputation System For Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are ad hoc networks that are composed of specialized sensors and use radio to gather, monitor, process and transfer environmental conditions. Unlike traditional networks, they are often susceptible to many attacks due to their specific characteristics, such as dynamic topology, open wireless channel, unstable environment and constraint resource. Therefore, traditional security mechanisms can’t solve all of the problems that wireless sensor networks are facing today. The reputation management mechanism in wireless sensor networks can evaluate the credibility of sensors and choose the most trustworthy entity to interact. Thus, it enhances the security and robustness of the network.Based on the theory of reputation management and security factors of wireless networks, this paper proposes an approach to measure the reputation and a model of reputation management which is suitable for universal wireless sensor networks. Firstly, this paper proposes a reputation model based on the utility function, which can manage the reputation in the wireless sensor networks under the publish/subscribe service. Secondly, this paper proposes an approach to measure the reputation based on publish/subscribe service, which can effectively judge the satisfaction level of client and server entities with the MQTT messages. Thirdly, this paper simulates the interaction of MQTT protocol, implements the system and mechanism of reputation management and analyzes the usual and unusual cases. The performance of the proposed mechanism is evaluated with the results under different network scenarios.The experimental results show that the proposed reputation model with publish/subscribe service can be applied to MQTT-based environment in which it can effectively manage the reputation and accurately find trustworthy sensors.