SPAWN: A secure privacy-preserving architecture in wireless mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

Fourth-generation wireless networks may require an integration of mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) into external network to enhance the flexibility of the communication and roaming. This phenomenon is well-suited for commercial and military applications which yield additional benefit of roaming. However, integration of MANET with external network poses a serious security challenge for communication because of open and distributed nature of the ad hoc network. In this paper, a secure privacy preserving architecture has been proposed to provide privacy and security for data communication in wireless mobile ad hoc networks. This architecture includes the concept of observer obscurity to provide privacy and security for the genuine nodes and to exclude misbehaving nodes in the network. The proposed architecture is designed based on the k-times anonymous authentication and onion routing - a cryptography concept which supports for anonymous communication. The simulation results prove the necessity and effectiveness of the proposed architecture in achieving such privacy and security in the integrated environment. © 2013 Liao et al.; licensee Springer.