Whisper: Local Secret Maintenance in Sensor Networks

A challenge in resource-constrained sensor networks is to provide secure communication in an efficient manner, even in the presence of denial-of-service attacks. In this article, we present a simple protocol for secret maintenance between a pair of network neighbors. We claim that certain adversaries cannot compromise the current secret shared by the neighbors, nor can they cause the neighbors to unduly waste resources. Moreover, if the current secret between the pair is somehow disclosed, previous secrets are not compromised nor can future secrets be compromised. Finally, we propose several ways of bootstrapping the initial secrets of the neighbors.