Identification in Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper we address the concept of how nodes in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) should be identified and authenticated. After discussing related works and the concept of identities and identifiers in MANETs, we present the MANET-ID system which can be used to reliably identify nodes in an ad hoc network with properties like uniqueness, irreversible ties with the identified object, immutability throughout the lifetime of the object and non-transferability. We also evaluate the overhead and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of our approach. We conclude the paper with a summary and outlook to future work.