Distributed Node Selection for Threshold Key Management with Intrusion Detection in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

In mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), identity (ID)-based cryptography with threshold secret sharing is a popular approach for the key management design. Most previous work for key management in MANETs concentrates on the protocols and structures. How to optimally conduct node selection in ID-based cryptography with threshold secret sharing merits further investigation. In this paper, we propose a distributed scheme to dynamically select nodes with master key shares to provide the private key generation service. The proposed scheme considers the node security and energy states in the process of selecting best nodes to construct a private key generator (PKG). Intrusion detection systems are modeled as noisy sensors to monitor the system security situations. The node selection process is formulated as a stochastic optimization problem. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.