ALERT: An Anonymous Location-Based Efficient Routing Protocol in MANETs

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) use anonymous routing protocols that hide node identities and/or routes from outside observers in order to provide anonymity protection. However, existing anonymous routing protocols, relying on either hop-by-hop encryption or redundant traffic, either generate high cost or cannot provide full anonymity protection to data sources, destinations, and routes. To offer high anonymity protection at a low cost, we propose an Anonymous Location-based Efficient Routing proTocol (ALERT). ALERT dynamically partitions the network field into zones and randomly chooses nodes in zones as intermediate relay nodes, which form a non-traceable anonymous route. In addition, it hides the data initiator/receiver among many initiators/receivers. Thus, ALERT offers anonymity protection to sources, destinations, and routes. It also has strategies to effectively counter intersection and timing attacks. Experimental results show that ALERT achieves better route anonymity protection and lower cost compared to other anonymous routing protocols. Also, ALERT achieves comparable routing efficiency to the GPSR geographical routing protocol.