A combined security scheme for network coding

Abstract

Network coding is theoretically the most efficient coding scheme for decentralized networks with better throughput and better robustness. However, if malicious intermediate nodes launch pollution attacks to the data by triumphantly forging network code, the sink node would suffer from failed decoding with bandwidth wasting, longer delay and more overheads. The classic bit by bit digital signature schemes are elegant, but the computation complexity is high, for each bit have to execute a hash computation. The pollution detection schemes based on null key cannot against colluding attacks. The schemes based on homomorphic MAC ensure the sink nodes verify the data, but those intermediate nodes cannot detect the pollution attacks. Above schemes are not enough efficient. In this paper, we propose a new combined security network coding scheme based on homomorphic MAC and null key that overcome the shortage of each other.