A Dynamic Reputation Management System for mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

Nodes in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are mandated to utilize their limited energy resources in forwarding routing control and data packets for other nodes. Since a MANET lacks a centralized administration and control, a node may decide to act selfishly, either by refusing to respond to route requests from other nodes or deceitfully by responding to some route requests, but dropping the corresponding data packets that are presented for forwarding. A significant increase in the presence of these misbehaving nodes in a MANET can subsequently degrade network performance. In this paper, we propose a dynamic reputation management system for detecting and isolating misbehaving nodes in MANETs. Our model employs a novel direct monitoring technique to evaluate the reputation of a node in the network, which ensures that nodes that expend their energy in transmitting data and routing control packets for others are allowed to carry out their network activities while the misbehaving nodes are detected and isolated from the network. Simulation results show that our model is effective at curbing and mitigating the effects of misbehaving nodes in the network.

A novel dynamic reputation-based source routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks

“…To implement this charging policy efficiently, hashing operations are used in the ACK packets to reduce the number of operations. It has also pointed out that MANET nodes should cooperate and forward packets for others; otherwise, it would be impossible to achieve a pure ad hoc network [12].…”

A Robust Dirichlet Reputation and Trust Evaluation of Nodes in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

“…Thus, there is a dire need for an efficient reputation and trust management system (RTMS) which encourages the active collaboration of nodes in the network. A lot of existing works on Reputation and Trust Management systems in MANETs [4] enforced the collaboration of nodes by isolating and repudiating uncooperative nodes from the available network resources. These RTM systems focused primarily on modelling effective mechanisms that ensure collaboration among nodes and they usually consider no punitive measure as a form of incentive for the cooperative nodes in the network [5][6][7][8][9].…”

“…Nodes that actively participate in route discovery processes and the forwarding of data packets tends to experience low energy levels after a certain period. These low energy levels may in turn hamper their ability to carry out successful network operations which in turn may have a negative effect on their respective reputation and trust as well as their network performance [4].…”

“…It is a known fact that nodes do not have unlimited energy levels and thus, there is a dire need for a reliable reputation and trust management system that would enforce cooperation by ensuring that collaborative nodes are rewarded for continuously conducting favourable network operations while nodes that are judged to be selfish or malicious nodes are penalised, isolated or denied the available the network resources. This concept of rewarding nodes for continuously carrying out favourable network operations was initially proposed by Chiejina et al [4]. The authors suggested a conceptual RTM model in which nodes that are judged to be trustworthy will be rewarded for their active network participation while untrustworthy nodes will be penalised in the network using a two-dimensional approach.…”

“…In this paper, we adopted the initial concept proposed in [4] and we present a candour two-dimensional trustworthiness evaluation technique to determine the trustworthiness of nodes in MANETs. Our proposed RTM models the reputation and trust evaluation of nodes by ensuring both positive and negative behaviours exhibited by a node are considered before the trustworthiness of the node can be determined.…”