On-Demand Key Distribution for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

Abstract

Mobile ad-hoc networks offer dynamic portable communication with little or no infrastructure. While this has many benefits, there are additional shortcomings specific to wireless communication that must be addressed. This research proposes gossip-based on-demand key distribution as a means to provide data encryption for mobile ad-hoc networks. This technique uses message keys to avoid encrypting and decrypting a message at every node. Other optimizations used include secure channel caching and joint rekey messages. The use of gossip makes the scheme robust to node failure. Experimental results show only a 15% increase in end-to-end delay with a node failure rate of 10%. The percentage of messages successfully delivered to nodes stays between 91-98% under the same 10% node failure rate. The network load is distributed to all nodes in the group preventing overload and single points of failure.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2007
Accession Number
ADA469510

Entities

People

  • Daniel F. Graham

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Ad Hoc Networks
  • Air Force
  • Communication Systems
  • Computer Networks
  • Cryptography
  • Infrastructure
  • Mesh Networks
  • Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
  • Mobile Phones
  • Network Science
  • Network Topology
  • Networks
  • Secure Communications
  • Security Protocols
  • Sensor Networks
  • Wireless Communications
  • Wireless Networks

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Computer Networking