Location cloaking algorithms based on regional characteristics

Abstract

Location-based services are widely used in the Internet services. The method of location cloaking is used to effectively protect the user's location privacy. The current cloaking algorithm does not take into account the regional characteristics, such as population density, popularity level and so on, based on which an attacker can often infer user's exact location from their cloaking area. In this paper, we design two cloaking algorithms based on regional characteristics in terms of two different attacking patterns: the Minimum Exposure Risk Cloaking Algorithm and the Maximum Entropy Cloaking Algorithm. Simulation results show that both the two cloaking algorithms can effectively secure the user's privacy.