Geocast into the Past: Towards a Privacy-Preserving Spatiotemporal Multicast for Cellular Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel spatiotemporal multicast concept for cellular networks, focusing on privacy preservation, proposing a cluster-based approach, and evaluating its performance through large-scale simulations.

Contribution

It presents the first cluster-based STM approach with detailed privacy features and performance evaluation in large-scale scenarios.

Findings

The CSTM scheme effectively preserves user privacy.

Performance evaluation shows scalability in large networks.

The approach supports various applications like crime investigation and disease control.

Abstract

This article introduces the novel concept of Spatiotemporal Multicast (STM), which is the issue of sending a message to mobile devices that have been residing at a specific area during a certain time span in the past. A wide variety of applications can be envisioned for this concept, including crime investigation, disease control, and social applications. An important aspect of these applications is the need to protect the privacy of its users. In this article, we present an extensive overview of applications and objectives to be fulfilled by an STM service. Furthermore, we propose a first Cluster-based Spatiotemporal Multicast (CSTM) approach and provide a detailed discussion of its privacy features. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our scheme in a large-scale simulation setup.