Trusting User Defined Context in MANETs: Experience from the MIDAS Approach

The MIDAS project has developed a middleware platform for context aware MANET services. A key problem with MANETs is the lack of a central authority and pre-existing trust. Thus it is hard to enable a trusted environment where context can be verified and trusted by peers. This paper describes how the MIDAS middleware can become "secure enough" for typical applications by identifying which existing security mechanisms are most apt to use. Benefits and shortcomings of the suggested solution are analysed and discussed.