A Collision-Free Transmission-based Source Location Privacy Protection Scheme in UASNs under Time Slot Allocation

Underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) are data-driven, and the data generation is infeasible without source nodes, sensors, and equipment deployed underwater. However, underwater acoustic communication between nodes is especially vulnerable to malicious attacks, which could cause the source data packets to be tracked and indirectly expose the locations of source nodes. Once the source node is located, the security of the network and the monitored object will be considered threatened. A collision-free transmission-based source location privacy protection algorithm in UASNs under time slot allocation (CFTSLP-TSA) is proposed in this article. First, we select suitable fake source nodes to generate fake data packets, aiming at concealing the traffic of the source data packets. Then, different transmission time slots are arranged for the source and the fake data packets, in order to avoid interference in the transmission between one another. In addition, a handshake-based relay node selection strategy is presented. This not only makes the paths more diverse but also requires a higher requirement for the attacker to track the flow of source packets while the source packets are transmitted without collisions. The performance of the simulation shows that the CFTSLP-TSA produces both a greater source location privacy protection level and a better data packet delivery rate compared with the other state-of-the-art schemes.