Sensor Data Integrity Check Using Hash Tree Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for checking the integrity of sensor-data streams are resource-intensive and complex, making them unsuitable for low-power embedded systems and requiring significant infrastructure changes, while also failing to ensure the temporal correctness and authenticity of sensor-data streams across multiple infrastructure nodes.
Innovation Solution
A detection unit with a control device connected to a hash tree memory calculates and stores hash values for individual sensor-data stream sections, allowing for efficient memory usage and integrity checks, with the option to sign root hash values for authenticity verification and store them in a decentralized check memory, enabling independent integrity checks across multiple nodes without requiring all hash values to be stored.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If encryption methods are used to check integrity of sensor data, then security and integrity protection is improved, but resource consumption increases and processing speed decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The sensor data stream is divided into individual sections or blocks, and hash values are calculated for each section independently. This segmentation allows the integrity check to be performed on manageable chunks of data rather than processing the entire stream at once, reducing the computational burden and energy consumption while maintaining comprehensive integrity protection.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses hash functions with adjustable parameters such as the depth of the hash tree structure. By changing the depth parameter, the system can adapt the level of security and the corresponding computational resources required. This allows optimization of the balance between integrity protection strength and resource consumption based on specific application requirements.
2Reliability
If cryptographic functions are used for security, then integrity protection is improved, but processing rate decreases in low-power embedded systems
Solution Approach 1:
The data stream is segmented into sections, and hash values are calculated for each section in parallel or sequentially at lower computational cost. This segmentation enables the system to achieve comprehensive integrity checking across the entire stream while maintaining a processing rate suitable for low-power embedded systems, as each segment requires minimal cryptographic processing.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of directly encrypting or heavily processing the original sensor data, the patent creates hash values (digests) that are compact representations of the data. These hash values serve as copies that preserve the integrity verification capability while requiring minimal processing power and space, thus maintaining high processing rates in resource-constrained environments.
3Reliability
If all hash values are stored in memory for integrity verification, then verification completeness is improved, but memory consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential hash values needed for verification from the complete set of all possible hash values. By using a hierarchical hash tree structure, only the root hash value and selected intermediate hashes need to be stored and transmitted for verification purposes, rather than storing every individual section hash. This extraction approach maintains verification completeness while dramatically reducing memory consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a nested hash tree structure where hash values are organized in hierarchical levels. Inner hash values are nested within outer hash values, with each level's hash being computed from the hashes of the previous level. This nesting allows the system to store only the root hash and necessary intermediate hashes, as the complete verification path is embedded within the hierarchical structure, minimizing memory requirements while ensuring complete verification capability.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus for checking the integrity of sensor-data streams (15) with a detection unit (1) having a sensor-data input. Individual sensor-data stream sections (11, 12, 13, 14) of a sensor-data stream (15) can also be checked for integrity independently of further processing in existing infrastructures (26), in particular in the case of transmission across a plurality of infrastructure nodes, with low resource consumption. The detection unit (1) comprises a control device (4), connected to the sensor-data input and to a hash tree memory (5), calculating and storing hash values on the basis of individual sensor-data stream sections (11, 12, 13, 14) and on the basis of subordinate hash values of the hash tree, and having a root hash output (19) outputting the most recently calculated root hash value.