A specialized event-driven network simulator for security and anonymity applications of Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents a novel software architecture for a specialized network simulator that is targeted towards analysis and verification of anonymity algorithms for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Even though many different network simulators exist and are popular such as NS-2, none of these can be adapted easily for testing of advanced WSN anonymity algorithms. For example, in trying to implement anonymity, i.e., hiding the identity of the source node in a WSN system, we need to generate fake messages. A good anonymity application has to randomize the generation of fake messages and also improve the ratio of real to fake messages so that excessive power is not being wasted by a WSN node. In order to be able to analyze the effectiveness of different anonymity algorithms, we developed an event-driven network simulator and provide statistical and visualization features. The simulator can be easily configured to any WSN topology and a messaging and routing protocol. The software architecture of the simulator allows for easy pluggability of different algorithms making it a valuable tool in WSN security/anonymity deployment and research.