Security and privacy in localization for underwater sensor networks

Underwater sensor networks are envisioned to enable a wide range of underwater applications such as pollution monitoring, offshore exploration, and oil/gas spill monitoring. Such applications require precise location information as otherwise the sensed data might be meaningless. On the other hand, security and privacy are critical issues as underwater sensor networks are typically deployed in harsh environments. Nevertheless, most underwater localization schemes are vulnerable to many attacks and suffer from potential privacy violations as they are designed for benign environments. However, a localization scheme that does not consider security and privacy could lead to serious consequences, especially in critical applications such as military monitoring. In this article, we discuss the security and privacy issues in underwater localization, and investigate the techniques that can provide security and preserve node privacy in underwater sensor networks.