Research On Anonymous Routing Protocols For Ad Hoc Networks

The Ad hoc network for its open channel, distributed cooperation, dynamictopology and lack of center authorization is more complicated in routing protocolsecurity than that in traditional network. The attackers not only may pose a threat tothe information transmitting on the network, but might also target the identities andlocations of the communicating nodes, the link of the connecting nodes and so on.Hence, we should ensure the anonymity while protecting the information security.However, since the specificity of this network, we should take the dynamic topologyand constrain of nodes’ resource and computational ability into consideration. Hence,the scalability also becomes an important property for Ad hoc network.Basing on the theories of cryptology, after studying some existing anonymousprotocols, we can conclude that although most protocols ensure the anonymity butfew can take the scalability into consideration. Most of them employ the algorithm ofpublic key cryptography a lot which consumes vast resources making the scalabilityof network poor. So a novel anonymous routing protocol is proposed in this research.This protocol is aimed at guaranteeing data’s security and network’s anonymity, whiletaking the scalability into consideration.The main content of this study is as follows:(1) We study the mechanisms of anonymity usually used in Ad hoc networkwhich differ from those in wired network. These mechanisms include onion/layeredencryption, pseudonyms and other invisible implicit addressing. Though analysis, weknow that although onion/layered encryption can provide better anonymity, however,this mechanism always consumes lots resources leading to poor scalability. Hence,while designing an anonymous protocol, this mechanism should be avoided as it canbe. Designing a practical trapdoor for anonymous routing is the key.(2) We have four anonymous routing protocols studied. From the research weknow that the protocol of Boukerche’s is based on onion routing algorithm and Lu’sdoesn’t have the property of untraceability while both of them operate lots public keycryptography calculations making the network’s scalability poor. Li’s protocolincreases lots of network loads during the preprocessing phase. Although the protocolof Zhang’s decreases the calculation consuming effectively, the large number ofbroadcasts during the every phase in routing establishing make lots network loads andlower the scalability. (3) Based on the above research, a novel anonymous routing protocol for Ad hocnetwork which combines the algorithm of bilinear pairings is proposed. After analysis,we show that this protocol provide the anonymity and security in the meanwhileensure the forward security and the mutual authentication between nodes. Also, viaefficiency analysis and simulation experiment, we compare our protocol with theothers and conclude that our protocol has better efficiency and scalability.