Data Confidentiality in Mobile Ad hoc Networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are self-configuring infrastructure-less networks comprised of
mobile nodes that communicate over wireless links without any central control on a peer-to-peer basis.
These individual nodes act as routers to forward both their own data and also their neighbours’ data by
sending and receiving packets to and from other nodes in the network. The relatively easy configuration
and the quick deployment make ad hoc networks suitable the emergency situations (such as human or
natural disasters) and for military units in enemy territory. Securing data dissemination between these
nodes in such networks, however, is a very challenging task. Exposing such information to anyone else
other than the intended nodes could cause a privacy and confidentiality breach, particularly in military
scenarios. In this paper we present a novel framework to enhance the privacy and data confidentiality in
mobile ad hoc networks by attaching the originator policies to the messages as they are sent between
nodes. We evaluate our framework using the Network Simulator (NS-2) to check whether the privacy and
confidentiality of the originator are met. For this we implemented the Policy Enforcement Points (PEPs),
as NS-2 agents that manage and enforce the policies attached to packets at every node in the MANET.