DiscoverFriends: Secure social network communication in mobile ad hoc networks

This paper presents a secure communication application called DiscoverFriends. Its purpose is to communicate to a group of online friends while bypassing their respective social networking servers under a mobile ad hoc network environment. DiscoverFriends leverages Bloom filters and a hybrid encryption technique with a self-organized public-key management scheme to securely identify friends and provide authentication. Firstly, Bloom filters provide a space-efficient means of security for friend discovery. Secondly, a combination of asymmetric and symmetric encryptions algorithms utilizes both benefits to provide increased security at lower computational cost. Thirdly, a self-organized public-key management scheme helps authenticate users using a trust graph in an infrastructureless setting. With the use of Wi-Fi Direct technology, an initiator is able to establish an ad hoc network where friends can connect to within the application. DiscoverFriends was analyzed under two threat models: replay attacks and eavesdropping by a common friend. Finally, the paper evaluates the application based on storage usage and processing.