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Title page for ETD etd-04092007-181236


Type of Document Dissertation
Author Hu, Jiangyi
Author's Email Address jiangyhu@cs.fsu.edu
URN etd-04092007-181236
Title Trust Management in Mobile Wireless Networks: Security and Survivability
Degree Doctor of Philosophy
Department Computer Science, Department of
Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title
Alec Yasinsac Committee Member
Breno de Medeiros Committee Member
Lois W. Hawkes Committee Member
Mio Washington Committee Member
Zhenhai Duan Committee Member
Keywords
  • Wireless Network
  • Mobile Network
  • Network Security
Date of Defense 2007-03-29
Availability unrestricted
Abstract
In this dissertation we study the security and survivability of wireless mobile network

systems in two distinct threat models: the Byzantine threat model and the selfish node

threat model.

Wireless mobile networks are collections of self-organizing mobile nodes with dynamic

topologies and have no fixed infrastructure. Because of their dynamic ad hoc nature, these

networks are particularly vulnerable to security threats. The security of such systems is,

to a large extent, based on trust associations. There are several ways in which trust can

be supported in a network system. The way we adopt is to establish a secure public key

management infrastructure (PKI). This enables basic cryptographic functionalities, such as

integrity, privacy, etc. However, due to the dynamic character of a wireless mobile network

and its ad hoc topology changes, the trust associations cannot depend on any pre-established

trust relations and must support a flexible, uncertain and incomplete trust model.

One of our main goals in this dissertation is to analyze the distributed nature of trust in

wireless mobile networks and to consider approaches that manage trust based only on locally

available information. In our analysis for this problem we use the traditional Byzantine

attack model. After reviewing the trust models proposed in the literature we propose an

extension that supports a distributed trust management infrastructure. In this model the

trust is distributed horizontally via multiple disjoint trust flows. Compared to the traditional

hierarchical trust distribution, our approach is appropriate for dynamic wireless systems for

which there are no central trust authorities.

A second goal is to manage trust based on the good behavior of nodes. Mobile wireless

networks rely heavily on node collaboration. However, since the nodes are often batterypowered, they may behave selfishly to preserve power. The threat model for this application

is restricted to selfish node attacks.

We present a simple and e±cient reputation system, Locally Aware Reputation System

(LARS) that mitigates selfish node behavior. We explore methods that stimulate node

cooperation in mobile wireless networks, and analyze the reputation systems proposed in the

literature. The performance of LARS is evaluated in terms of its packet delivery ratio, its

end-to-end delay and its overhead, and compared to the other reputation systems proposed in the literature.

Finally, to enhance the security and survivability of wireless mobile networks against selfish threats, we propose a mechanism that will trace selfish node behavior.

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