Hardened Registration Process for Participatory Sensing

Abstract

Participatory sensing systems need to gather information from a large number of participants. However, the openness of the system is a double-edged sword: by allowing practically any user to join, the system can be abused by an attacker who introduces a large number of virtual devices. This poster proposes a hardened registration process for Participatory Sensing to raise the bar: registrations are screened through a number of defensive measures, towards rejecting spurious registrations that do not correspond to actual devices. This deprives an adversary from a relatively easy take-over and, at the same time, allows a flexible and open registration process. The defensive measures are incorporated in the participatory sensing application.