Providing Authentication in Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) Environment

Abstract

Abstract. DTN environment is characterized by intermittent connectivity, high/variable delay, heterogeneity, high error rate and asymmetric data rate amongst others. These characteristics accounts for the poor behavior of Internet protocols in this environment. To address these problems, DTN was conceived and designed together with specialized protocols to carry out its services. Its emergence called for a new concept in security that was considered at the design stage. The main aim of this paper is to propose a traditional cryptography based authentication scheme that does not depend on network administrator's availability during post network authentication communication and facilitates bundle processing by the recipient in the absence of connectivity. In this paper, we present and discuss the system model, the proposed credential and the propose authentication scheme. A simulation framework is developed for the implementation of the proposed and referenced schemes. From the simulation results, the proposed scheme was observed to be independent of network administrator's availability during post network authentication communication and facilitates bundle processing in the absence of connectivity.

Cryptographic Key Management in Delay Tolerant Networks: A Survey

“…For this reason, apart from PKI, IBC has been examined as a viable solution for security within the DTN context. From Tables 2 and 3 it can be observed that few works propose the usage of pre-shared keys or pre-established trust between the nodes [41,47]. However, it is obvious that for scalability reasons such schemes apply only in a small and fixed-size DTNs.…”

“…An analysis related to the applicability of IBC in DTN systems by [25] resulted that for authentication IBC had no significant advantage over traditional cryptography. Works such as [45][46][47][48][49] are based on the classic PKI because it is well-examined and recognised. However, PKI schemes are associated with limitations such as server unavailability and cryptographic operations overhead.…”

“…In addition, an encryption decision-making workflow diagram of a DTN custodian node is presented. The authors in [47] propose a traditional cryptography based authentication scheme specially designed for Satellite DTN. According to the authors, the proposed scheme does not depend on network administrator's availability during post network authentication communication and facilitates bundle processing by the recipient in the absence of connectivity.…”

“…Require TTP-Works such as [45][46][47][48][49] are based on PKI solutions mandate a TTP, and thus a CA. Works such as [12,[24][25][26]40,41] that are founded on IBC solutions, require a TTP too, namely the PKG.…”

Cryptographic key management in delay tolerant networks

“…Cryptographic key management is the foundation of network security, so it is an indis- [47]. However such schemes apply only in a small and fixed-size DTNs.…”