ANOC: Anonymous Network-Coding-Based Communication with Efficient Cooperation

Abstract

Abstract-Practical wireless network coding (e.g., COPE) is a promising technique that can enhance the throughput of wireless networks. However, such a technique also bears a serious security drawback: it breaks the current privacy-preserving protocols (e.g., Onion Routing), since their operations conflict each other. As user privacy in wireless networks is highly valued nowadays, a new privacy-preserving scheme that can function with wireless network coding becomes indispensable.To address such a challenge, we apply the idea of cooperative networking and design a novel anonymity scheme named ANOC, which can function in network-coding-based wireless mesh networks. ANOC is built upon the classic Onion Routing protocol, and resolves its conflict with network coding by introducing efficient cooperation among relay nodes. Using ANOC, we can perform network coding to achieve a higher throughput, while still preserving user privacy in wireless mesh networks. We formally show how ANOC achieves the property of relationship anonymity, and conduct extensive experiments via nsclick to demonstrates its feasibility and efficiency when integrated with network coding.Index Terms-Network coding, anonymity, cooperative networking, Onion Routing. I. INTRODUCTIONHow to achieve high data throughput is a critical concern in wireless networks. Recent studies show that network coding [1], as an alternative to the traditional store-and-forward paradigm, can remarkably enhance the network capacity. In particular, authors in [2] propose COPE, the first practical wireless network coding scheme for wireless mesh networks [3]. In COPE, nodes operate in promiscuous mode, and opportunistically perform data mixing (or coding) on the packets to be forwarded to neighboring nodes. Fig. 1 shows three basic coding scenarios in COPE [4]. In Fig. 1(a), node S 1 needs to send a packet P 1 to D 1 , and this packet is relayed by node C; while S 2 needs to send a packet P 2 to D 2 , also relayed by node C. The dashed line means that D 1 and D 2 can overhear P 2 and P 1 , respectively, due to the broadcast nature of wireless channels. Without network coding, the communication will cost four transmissions in total: (1) S 1 sends P 1 to C, (2) C forwards P 1 to D 1 , (3) S 2 sends P 2 to C, and (4) C forwards P 2 to D 2 . On the other hand, with network coding, the relay node C only needs to broadcast P 1 ⊕ P 2 , and then D 1 can recover P 1 by computing P 2 ⊕(P 1 ⊕P 2 ); D 2 can recover P 2 by computing P 1 ⊕(P 1 ⊕P 2 ). In this way, one transmission will be saved at node C, and the network throughput can be improved. Fig. 1(b) shows another possible coding scenario where no overhearing is needed; Fig. 1(c) gives a hybrid scenario that combines the former two cases.In addition to throughput improvement, privacy preservation is also an important concern in wireless communications since:

A Network-Coding Aided Road-Map of Large-Scale Near-Capacity Cooperative Communications

“…• Cross-layer design [127], [128], [191], [192] in cooperative networks. Network coding appears in a number of categories within the framework of cooperative networking, namely in coding [137][138][139], power allocation [145], [148], energy harvesting [74], [151], two-way relaying [151], [161], cooperative transmission [154], channel access [174], [175], relayselection [163], [164] as well as in routing [177], [180], [181] categories, as portrayed in Fig. 4.…”

Using group anonymity to hide the identity of VoIP mobile users communicating over hybrid networks while preserving quality of service

“…In all, we differentiate between two levels of privacy: non‐observability and non‐linkability. Non‐observability aims to camouflage the communication, and this achieves the strongest guarantee of privacy , but it is not suitable for interactive audio/video chatting applications because such models involve padding dummy packets, which introduces overhead that jeopardizes the QoS requirements of multimedia applications , . Non‐linkability, on the other hand, prevents the revelation of the link between communicating users.…”

Network Coding Combined with Onion Routing for Anonymous and Secure Communication in a Wireless Mesh Network

“…Our approach modifies both these well known schemes and combines them together to work cooperatively while removing any conflicts sys-tematically. Some existing similar approaches employing network coding and achieving pri-vacy can be found in [18] and [19]. Authors in [20] introduce an enhanced scheme for network coding and promise even superior gains.…”