A topology hidden anonymous multicast routing for ad hoc networks

Anonymity is an important topic in ad hoc networks. Previous unicast anonymous routing protocols in ad hoc networks usually assume that shared secret exists between the sender and the receiver and hide either the sender and the receiver or the intermediate nodes from the ad hoc network. Researches on anonymous multicast routing are nearly extinct. This paper proposes a multicast anonymous routing protocol, called topology hidden multicast routing (THMR), which not only makes the sender and the receivers anonymous, but also hides the intermediate route nodes from the adversary simultaneously. In addition, each node do not need to share secret with others before communications. THMR can prevent passive analysis attack as well as most active attacks that are based on route information. The denial-of-service attack to specific session can also be restrained. The simulative results show that THMR is able to discover anonymous routes effectively in an ad hoc network.