Communication-Flow Privacy-Preservation in 6LoWPANs-Based IoT Networks

An Internet of Things (IoT) network is a worldwide network connecting billions of devices with each other over the Internet. IPv6 Low power Wireless Personal Area Network (6LoWPAN) is an enabling technology for a complete end-to-end IoTs architecture. A 6LoWPAN contains small devices that communicate with other small devices or other powerful devices over the Internet. Communication privacy is a feature that allows the communicating users to make sure that there is no other entity that is spying on them. As such, it is a very important feature for the success of IoT applications. While traditionally privacy has been dealt with by hiding the content of the data content exchanged between the communicating pairs through the use of encryption, it has been shown that this cannot be sufficient in many application scenarios. It has been shown that metadata information such as the ones included in packet headers for the sake of the operation of communication protocols, such as IP addresses, reveal information such as the identities of the communicating pairs, which in some applications is considered critical information.