Anonymous and Secure Communication in a Wireless Mesh Network

<p>With the rapid advancement of different types of wireless technologies the problem arose of combining them together to provide improved bandwidth and enhanced throughput. The answer came out in the form of a Wireless Mesh Network (WMN). A typical WMN is made up of mesh routers and mesh clients where mesh routers have somewhat limited mobility and they form the backbone of the network whereas mesh clients are allowed to be highly mobile or completely stationary or somewhere in between. This forms a very versatile network which allows clients with different levels of mobility, interface and bandwidth requirements to be a part of the same network. The communication can be achieved by directly communicating with the router by being in its range or in an ad hoc fashion through several hops. A WMN is mainly designed to be self-configured and self-adjusting dynamically. This ensures large network coverage with minimum infrastructure requirements, hence low cost. Although a WMN gives multifold advantages it is also vulnerable to several security and privacy threats being a dynamic open medium. Different types of clients such as laptops, cell phones, smart devices can join or leave the network anytime they wish. This opens up issues like fake registrations and packet sniffing.</p><p>This work deals with the issues of security and privacy separately in two parts in great detail by simulatingcountermeasures for different kinds of attacks in a WMN. The first part mainly deals with creating a perfectlysecure network for safe communication by using a bi-variate polynomial scheme for low overheads insteadof a public-private key mechanism. The second part deals with making any communication in the networkanonymous by hiding the node initiating the session by using redundancy at the cost of some associatedoverheads.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

MS

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Engineering and Applied Science: Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Cincinnati

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Prakash, Abhinav

Contributors dc:contributor

• Agrawal, Dharma

• Computer Science
• Mesh Networks
• Security
• Onion Routing
• Bivariate Polynomial Function
• Backbone
• Hybrid Networks

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1352397027

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:ucin1352397027