Abstract
Traditionally the anonymity of an entity of interest can be achieved by hiding it among a group of other entities with similar characteristics, i.e., an anonymity set. In mobile ad hoc networks, generating and maintaining such an anonymity set for any ad hoc node are challenging because of the node mobility and consequently of the dynamic network topology. In this paper, we address the problem of the destination anonymity. We propose protocols that use fuzzy destination position to generate a geographic area called anonymity zone (AZ). A packet for a destination is delivered to all the nodes in the AZ, which, consequently, make up the anonymity set. The size of the anonymity set may decrease because nodes are mobile, yet the corresponding management on anonymity set is simple. We design techniques to further improve node anonymity. We use extensive simulation to study the node anonymity and routing performance, and to determine the parameters that most impact the anonymity level that can be achieved by our protocol.
Work from Xiaoxin Wu was performed at Purdue University with a support from Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) Fellowship.  ∗ Part of the work was also supported by University of Alabama RAC 2005 award.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Reiter, M.K., Rubin, A.D.: Crowds: Anonymity ForWeb Transactions. ACM Transactions on Information and System Security 1(1), 6–92 (1998)
Sherwood, R., Bhattacharjee, B., Srinivasan, A.: p5: A Protocol for Scalable Anonymous Communication. In: IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Oakland, CA, pp. 53–65 (May 2002)
Scarlata, V., Levine, B., Shields, C.: Responder Anonymity and Anonymous Peer-to-Peer File Sharing. In: IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP), Riverside, CA (2001)
Perkins, C.E., Royer, E.M.: Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing. In: Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, pp. 90–100 (1999)
Johnson, D., Maltz, D.: Dynamic Source Routing in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM-Computer Communications Review (1996)
Stojmenovic, I.: Position based routing in ad hoc networks. IEEE Commmunications Magazine 40(7), 128–134 (2002)
Karp, B., Kung, H.T.: GPSR: Greedy Perimeters Stateless Routing for Wireless Network. In: Proceedings of MOBICOM 2000 (2000)
Wu, X., Bhargava, B.: AO2P: Ad Hoc On-Demand Position-Based Private Routing. IEEE Transaction on Mobile Computing (accepted for publication)
Gedic, B., Liu, L.: Location Privacy in Mobile System: A Personalized Anonymization Model. In: Proceedings of ICDCS (2005)
Cheng, R., Kalashnikov, D.V., Prabhakar, S.: Querying Imprecise Data in Moving Object Environments. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (IEEE TKDE) 16(9), 1112–1127 (2004)
National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). The Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code, FIPS 198 (2002)
Chaum, D.L.: Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms. Communications of the ACM 24(2), 84–88 (1981)
Reed, M., Syverson, P., Goldschlag, D.: Anonymous Connections and Onion Routing. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication Special Issue on Copyright and Privacy Protection 16(4), 482–494 (1998)
Kong, J., Hong, X.: ANODR: Anonymous on Demand Routing with Untraceable Routes for Mobile Ad-hoc Networks. In: 4th ACM international symposium on Mobile ad hoc networking and computing, Annapolis, MD (June 2003)
QualNet, Scalable Network Technologies (SNT), http://www.qualnet.com/
Yoon, J., Liu, M., Noble, B.: Random Waypoint Considered Harmful. In: Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM (2003)
Zhang, Y., Liu, W., Luo, W.: Anonymous Communications in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks. In: Proceedings of INFOCOM (2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Wu, X., Liu, J., Hong, X., Bertino, E. (2006). Achieving Anonymity in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Using Fuzzy Position Information. In: Cao, J., Stojmenovic, I., Jia, X., Das, S.K. (eds) Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks. MSN 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4325. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11943952_39
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11943952_39
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-49932-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49933-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)