Secure descriptive message dissemination in DTNs

Abstract

Mobile nodes in some challenging network scenarios suffer from intermittent connectivity and frequent partitions e.g. battlefield and disaster recovery scenarios. Disruption Tolerant Network (DTN) technologies are designed to enable nodes in such environments to communicate with one another. A key feature of DTN technology is the late-binding capability that allows messages destined to a descriptive name to be resolved progressively until the messages are delivered to one or several recipients. In this paper, we describe a flexible security solution that allows messages destined to descriptive names to be sent securely such that unauthorized personnel is not allowed to eavesdrop on them. Our solution builds on the attributed based cryptography system. In addition, we describe our implementation of a late-binding router that supports our security solution. We also present our prototyping experience.