A Secure and Lightweight Service Discovery Model for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

To deal with the challenges posed by device capacity and capability, and also the nature of ad hoc networks, service discovery model is needed that can resolve security and privacy issues with simple solutions. The use of complex algorithms and powerful fixed infrastructure is infeasible due to the volatile nature of mobile ad hoc environment and mobile devices. This paper presents a Secure and Lightweight Service discovery (SLSD) model for mobile ad hoc environment. SLSD model involves virtual dynamic backbone for mobile ad hoc networks, service registration, discovery, consistency maintenance of virtual backbone network, secure sharing of services with known and unknown devices based on trust. This model reduces control message overhead, achieves nominal battery power consumption, and minimizes the overhead of encrypting messages each time a device requests or provides services.