Secure Group Communication for Mobile P2P Groups: A Survey

This report presents an overview over secure group communication paradigms in ad hoc networks, with especial attention to join and leave algorithms. Although classical group communication, after more than 25 years of development, is by now well understood and formalized, group communication for ad hoc networks is still under development. Firstly, the paradigm of groups in distributed computing is considered, distinguishing between classical, multicast and mobile ad hoc groups. Purpose, features, and system architecture of group communication systems are presented in the light of historical evolution of this concept. Further, security issues in group communication are outlined, focusing on the changes to the system architecture which are necessary for making a group communication system secure. Finally, an overview over group key management in group communication is given.