Privacy preserving node selection: A physical layer approach

Distributed monitoring and sensing networks are ubiquitous in current technological systems. Security and efficiency of the data aggregation and fusion process are key determinants in the adoption of these systems. The principal thesis investigated in this paper is the role of privacy in providing security guarantees for such networks. We demonstrate that two-level hierarchy (or partition) in information fusion networks can be used to ensure security in several adversarial scenarios. We propose a privacy preserving physical layer framework to generate such a hierarchical structure. We illustrate the security of this framework and its application to low power sensor networks.