Research Article
TinyRNG: A Cryptographic Random Number Generator for Wireless Sensors Network Nodes
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/WIOPT.2007.4480051, author={Aurelien Francillon and Claude Castelluccia}, title={TinyRNG: A Cryptographic Random Number Generator for Wireless Sensors Network Nodes}, proceedings={5th International ICST Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc, and Wireless Networks}, publisher={IEEE}, proceedings_a={WIOPT}, year={2008}, month={3}, keywords={Clocks Communication system security Cryptographic protocols Cryptography Entropy Mice Random number generation Timing Wireless application protocol Wireless sensor networks}, doi={10.1109/WIOPT.2007.4480051} }- Aurelien Francillon
Claude Castelluccia
Year: 2008
TinyRNG: A Cryptographic Random Number Generator for Wireless Sensors Network Nodes
WIOPT
IEEE
DOI: 10.1109/WIOPT.2007.4480051
Abstract
Wireless sensors network (WSN) security is a major concern and many new protocols are being designed. Most of these protocols rely on cryptography, and therefore, require a cryptographic pseudo-random number generator (CPRNG). However, designing an efficient and secure CPRNG for wireless sensor networks is not trivial since most of the common source of randomness used by standard CPRNGs are not present on a wireless sensor node. We present TinyRNG, a CPRNG for wireless sensor nodes. Our generator uses the received bit errors as one of the sources of randomness. We show that transmission bit errors on a wireless sensor network are a very good source of randomness. We demonstrate that these errors are randomly distributed and uncorrelated from one sensor to another. Furthermore, we show that these errors are difficult to observe and manipulate by an attacker.