Trust Document Distribution in MANETs

Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) are used in battle-fields where no network infrastructure exists. Users rely on their physical neighbors to communicate with other users that are not in proximity. Accurate trust establishment and maintenance is essential for secure and reliable message transmissions in MANETs. Because of the mobility and dynamics of MANETs, the validity and value of trust documents change with time as well as with battlefield conditions and scenario stage. Thus trust management in MANETs is a much more dynamic problem than in conventional wireline networks, as well as wireless cellular networks. In traditional networks, centralized trusted servers provide necessary trust documents for trust establishment. However, such servers are not available in MANETs. Trust documents are distributed among users in the network. In this paper, we develop and analyze distributed schemes for efficiently and securely distributing trust documents, and updates, so that users are able to establish reliable trust relations with their neighbors. Key performance metrics are time response and availability ofdocuments across the network. Our approach is inspired from network coding, where trust documents are combined during distribution.