Towards a Usenet-Like Discussion System for Users of Disconnected MANETs

Applications that rely on the publish-subscribe model (such as those dedicated to news or event distribution) require a communication model whereby information can flow towards any interested receiver rather than towards set destinations. Content-based communication is a style of communication that perfectly fits the needs of such applications. Yet supporting this kind of communication in partially or intermittently connected mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is still a challenge, for end-to-end content-driven routing structures can hardly be constructed and maintained in such environments. In this paper we provide an overview of a protocol we designed to support opportunistic, delay-tolerant, content- based communication in a disconnected MANET. We also describe our project of using this protocol to implement a peer-to-peer, Usenet-inspired discussion system.