SPM: Source Privacy for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Source privacy plays a key role in communication infrastructure protection. It is a critical security requirement for many mission critical communications. This is especially true for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) due to node mobility and lack of physical protection. Existing cryptosystem-based techniques and broadcasting-based techniques cannot be easily adapted to MANET because of their extensive cryptographic computation and/or large communication overhead. In this paper, we first propose a novel unconditionally secure source anonymous message authentication scheme (SAMAS). This scheme enables message sender to transmit messages without relying on any trusted third parties. While providing source privacy, the proposed scheme can also provide message content authenticity. We then propose a novel communication protocol for MANET that can ensure communication privacy for both message sender and message recipient. This protocol can also protect end-to-end routing privacy. Our security analysis demonstrates that the proposed protocol is secure against various attacks. The theoretical analysis and simulation show that the proposed scheme is efficient and can provide high message delivery ratio. The proposed protocol can be used for critical infrastructure protection and secure file sharing in mobile ad hoc networks where dynamic groups can be formed.