A Secure Social-Aware Incentive Scheme for Delay Tolerant Networks

In Delay Tolerant Networks, the message forwarding process follows an opportunistic way due to the character that lacks end-to-end link between mobile nodes. The selfish and malicious nodes managed by rational individuals may refuse to lend a hand with relaying to conserve their resources such as power and storage space, in which case the network performance can be considerably degraded. In this paper, to address the selfish problem, a secure social-aware incentive scheme for delay tolerant networks is proposed. The proposed scheme uses identity based cryptosystem with social attributes as the identity to ensure the security of nodes and messages. In addition, credits are adopted to stimulate the cooperation in relaying messages between nodes. Security analysis and performance evaluation via simulations illustrate that the proposed scheme can effectively inspire the cooperation of nodes while keeping the confidentiality and integrity of messages.