SybilCast: broadcast on the open airwaves (extended abstract)

Abstract

Consider a scenario where many wireless users are attempting to download data from a single base station. While most of the users are honest, some users may be malicious and attempt to obtain more than their fair share of the bandwidth. One possible strategy for attacking the system is to simulate multiple fake identities, each of which is given its own equal share of the bandwidth. Such an attack is often referred to as a sybil attack. To counter such behavior, we propose SybilCast, a protocol for multichannel wireless networks that limits the number of fake identities, and in doing so, ensures that each honest user gets at least a constant fraction of their fair share of the bandwidth. As a result, each honest user can complete his or her data download in asymptotically optimal time. A key aspect of this protocol is balancing the rate at which new identities are admitted and the maximum number of fake identities that can co-exist, while keeping the overhead low. Besides sybil attacks, our protocol can also tolerate spoofing and jamming.