Secured by Fluctuating Topology Using the Fluctuating Topology of MANETs to Secure Key Exchange

• Main Authors: Ariel Stulman, Alan Stulman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-10-01
• Series: Electronics
• Subjects: key exchange; confidentiality; ad hoc networks (<span style="font-variant: small-caps">manet</span>s); mobile security; security protocols
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/8/10/1172

<span style="font-variant: small-caps;">vanet</span>s, <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">iot</span>, and many other acronyms represent exciting new technologies that build upon pervasive computation and communications to achieve their goal. As an underlying communication model, the (mobile) ad hoc network (<span style="font-variant: small-caps;">manet</span>) paradigm is used, which implements a peer-to-peer communication model rather than the more traditional infrastructure model. Of course, privacy, confidentiality, integrity, and security related issues are of utter importance in such contexts as well. In this paper, we wish to present a key exchange technique, which builds upon the inherent characteristic of <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">manet</span>s: their fluctuating topology. By splitting key exchange information into multiple parts and spraying them over space or time, the ever-changing topology of the network almost completely removes an active attacker&#8217;s success ratio. Algorithms are then simulated, and the results presented and discussed. We further point to future directions and uses for this research.