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IBKES: Efficient Identity-Based Key Exchange with Scalability for Wireless Sensor Networks Using Algebraic Signature
Changsheng Wan

Existing identity-based key exchange mechanisms for wireless sensor networks can be categorized into two types: pairing-based mechanisms and non-pairing-based mechanisms. However, pairing-based mechanisms require high computation costs of sensor nodes resulting in low efficiency, while non-pairing-based mechanisms require the BS deploying public keys of newly joined sensor nodes on all other sensor nodes in the wireless sensor network resulting in the scalability issue. Facing this dilemma, this paper presents a secure and efficient identitybased key exchange protocol with scalability, namely IBKES. Similar to the mechanisms of this field, IBKES can provide confidentiality and integrity protections to the exchanged key. However, compared to pairing-based mechanisms, IBKES is based on the elliptic curve, which only employs a few scalar multiplication operations. Since scalar multiplication is much more efficient than pairing, IBKES can be much more efficient than pairing-based mechanisms. At the same time, compared to non-pairing-based mechanisms, IBKES uses algebraic signature for generating private keys of sensor nodes, and designs a novel key exchange protocol without using the public key of sensor nodes. Therefore, it needs not deploy public keys of sensor nodes and enjoys the scalability property. Experimental results show that the proposed protocol is feasible for real applications.

Keywords: Identity-based key exchange, wireless sensor networks, elliptic curve, algebraic signature

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