A growing number of ad hoc networking protocols and location-aware services require that mobile nodes learn the position of their neighbors. However, such a process can be easily abused or disrupted by adversarial nodes. In absence of a priori trusted nodes, the discovery and verification of neighbor positions presents challenges that have been scarcely investigated in the literature. In this paper, we address this open issue by proposing a fully distributed cooperative solution that is robust against independent and colluding adversaries, and can be impaired only by an overwhelming presence of adversaries. Results show that our protocol can thwart more than 99 percent of the attacks under the best possible conditions for the adversaries, with minimal false positive rates. Discovery and Verification of Neighbor Positions in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
The correctness of node locations is therefore an all important issue in mobile networks, and it becomes particularly challenging in the presence of adversaries aiming at harming the system. In these cases, we need solutions that let nodes 1) correctly establish their location in spite of attacks feeding false location information, and 2) verify the positions of their neighbors, so as to detect adversarial nodes announcing false locations.
Secure neighbor discovery (SND) deals with the identification of nodes with which a communication link can be established or that are within a given distance. SND is only a step toward the solution we are after: simply put, an adversarial node could be securely discovered as neighbor and be indeed a neighbor (within some SND range), but it could still cheat about its position within the same range. RF signal doesn’t support for to discover the neighbor position
In this paper, we focus on the latter aspect, hereinafter referred to as neighbor position verification (NPV for short). Specifically, we deal with a mobile ad hoc network, where a pervasive infrastructure is not present, and the location data must be obtained through node-to-node communication. Such a scenario is of particular interest since it leaves the door open for adversarial nodes to misuse or disrupt the location-based services.
We deal with a mobile ad hoc network, where a pervasive infrastructure is not present, and the location data must be obtained through node-to-node communication. Such a scenario is of particular interest since it leaves the door open for adversarial nodes to misuse or disrupt the location-based services. It is designed for spontaneous ad hoc environments, and, as such, it does not rely on the presence of a trusted infrastructure or of a priori trustworthy nodes. It leverages cooperation but allows a node to perform all verification procedures autonomously.
This approach has no need for lengthy interactions, e.g., to reach a consensus among multiple nodes, making our scheme suitable for both low- and high mobility environments; It is reactive, meaning that it can be executed by any node, at any point in time, without prior knowledge of the neighborhood. It is robust against independent and colluding adversaries. It is lightweight, as it generates low overhead traffic. To our knowledge, our protocol is the first to provide a fully distributed, lightweight solution to the NPV problem that does not require any infrastructure or a priori trusted neighbors and is robust to several different attacks, including coordinated attacks by colluding adversaries.