Applicability of multiparty computation schemes for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks pose special requirements to the deployed security algorithms, due to their unique properties: a single sensor node has great restrictions in terms of computing power, available memory and available energy. It is nevertheless desirable for the messages exchanged over the air interface to be secure against eavesdropping and forging. Since a single sensor node can be captured and removed very easily and almost undetectable, cryptographic schemes that do not rely on a single master secret present in every node, like those based on, for example, multiparty computations, seem to be a promising alternative in this setting. We are currently investigating the applicability of a modified implementation of the Gennaro-Rabin-Rabin multiparty multiplication protocol for sensor networks, with a special focus on the number of messages that have to be exchanged and the additional load put on every node by this protocol. This paper gives a short overview of our work and lists some preliminary results.