Message Block Obfuscation for Resource-Constrained IoT Data Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Resource-constrained IoT devices struggle to perform cryptographic key generation, hashing, and encryption/decryption due to computational limitations, making it challenging to protect sensitive data generated and communicated over networks.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method that splits messages into ordered blocks, generates reversible encoded indications based on hash values and a shared secret, and communicates them in a different order to obfuscate the message, allowing reassembly by the receiver while optimizing hashing operations to meet performance criteria, thus protecting data without requiring extensive encryption resources.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If cryptographic key generation, hashing, and encryption/decryption are performed to protect data, then data security is improved, but computational resource consumption increases beyond the capability of resource-constrained IoT devices
Solution Approach 1:
The message is divided into multiple blocks, and each block is processed separately through hashing operations. This segmentation allows the system to distribute the computational burden across multiple smaller operations rather than requiring a single intensive encryption operation, making it feasible for resource-constrained devices while maintaining security through the aggregation of hashed blocks
Solution Approach 2:
Traditional cryptographic encryption/decryption mechanisms are replaced with a hashing-based system. Instead of using computationally intensive symmetric or asymmetric encryption algorithms, the system uses hash functions to transform message blocks into encoded representations that can be verified without requiring the original message, significantly reducing computational resource requirements while maintaining data integrity and security
2Reliability
If traditional encryption methods are used to protect sensitive information, then data protection is improved, but device complexity and resource requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
Complex cryptographic encryption/decryption systems are replaced with a simpler hashing-based mechanism. The system uses hash functions to generate encoded representations of message blocks that can be transmitted and verified without requiring the receiver to perform complex decryption operations, thereby reducing device complexity while maintaining data protection
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of transmitting the original message through encrypted channels requiring decryption, the system creates hash-based copies of the message blocks. These hash copies contain sufficient information for verification and reconstruction by the receiver without requiring the receiver to have the computational capability to decrypt traditional cryptographic systems
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods of protecting data in a message for communication from a sender to a receiver, the sender and receiver sharing a secret including splitting the message into a number of ordered message blocks, the order being a proper order such that an aggregation of the blocks in the proper order constitutes the message; generating an encoded indication of a position of the block in the proper order of blocks, the encoding being reversible and based on at least a hash value for the block, a secret shared between the sender and the receiver, and a position of the block in the proper order; communicating the blocks and the encoded indications to the receiver, the blocks being communicated in an order different to the proper order so as to obfuscate the message, such that the blocks can be reassembled by the receiver in the proper order on the basis of the shared secret.