Load balanced onion relay for prevention of traffic analysis in ad hoc networks

Abstract

In this paper, an ad hoc network anonymous data forwarding method and an associated routing protocol to prevent traffic analysis is presented. This method assumes trusted closed group nodes and every node can play the role of onion relay for the anonymous data forwarding. The route discovery operation of the protocol adopts the load balancing concept. The load balancing not only improves the throughput but also helps the prevention of the traffic analysis since the load cost for camouflage traffic can be reduce and the routes change dynamically. The performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated by simulation, and compared in several major aspects with the fixed mix method for anonymous data forwarding that works over existing ad hoc routing protocol. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.