Anonymity, unlinkability and unobservability in mobile ad hoc networks

Mobile ad hoc networks have the features of open medium, dynamic topology, cooperative algorithms, lack of centralized monitoring etc. Due to these, mobile ad hoc networks are much vulnerable to security attacks when compared to wired networks. There are various routing protocols that have been developed to cope up with the limitations imposed by the ad hoc networks. But none of these routing schemes provide complete unlinkability and unobservability. In this paper we have done a survey about anonymous routing and secure communications in mobile ad hoc networks. Different routing protocols are analyzed based on public/private key pairs and cryptosystems, within that USOR can well protect user privacy against both inside and outside attackers. It is a combination of group signature scheme and ID based encryption scheme. These are run during the route discovery process. We implement USOR on ns2, and then its performance is compared with AODV.