COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: CT-ISG: Overlay-Based User Unlocatability and Communication Anonymity in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

移动自组网(MANET)在灾难救援、公共安全和军事行动等时间关键和任务关键场景中得到了越来越多的应用。这个项目的目的是研究两个非常重要但几乎没有触及的MANET安全问题：用户不可定位和通信匿名性。如果不解决这些问题，移动用户就可以很容易地被跟踪，或者他们的通信模式可以很容易地被收集起来进行用户分析，这将危及用户隐私，使他们容易受到精准攻击。在这个项目中，将研究一种新的基于覆盖的方法OverUCA，它是由在底层MANET底层上相互匿名通信的节点组成的匿名网络覆盖，以实现用户不可定位、源匿名、目的匿名、源到目的不可链接，并与现有的路由和MAC协议完全兼容。这项研究的成功将对推动移动自组网在安全关键的商业、民用和军事应用中的部署产生巨大影响。这项研究将为对抗精确定位攻击提供一种可行的方法，推动无线安全研究的最新进展，并引发安全MANET的新的研究活动。此外，这项研究的结果将通过高质量的会议和期刊出版物以及公开演讲广泛传播。此外，研究成果将被纳入两个机构的教育课程。最后，几名少数民族(女性)学生将攻读博士学位，因此该项目将为全国劳动力培养少数民族专业人员。

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are finding growing applications in time-critical and mission-critical scenarios such as disaster rescue?C public safety and military operations. The purpose of this project is to investigate two very important but mostly untouched MANET security issues: user unlocatability and communication anonymity. Without solving them, mobile users can be easily tracked or their communication patterns can be easily gathered for user profiling, which would jeopardize the user privacy and make them vulnerable to pinpoint attacks. In this project, a novel overlay-based approach OverUCA, an anonymous network overlay composed of nodes that anonymously communicate with one another atop the underlying MANET substrate, will be investigated to achieve user unlocatability, source anonymity, destination anonymity, source-destination unlinkability, and full compatibility with existing routing and MAC protocols. The success of this research will have a tremendous impact on advancing the deployments of MANETs in security-critical commercial, civilian, and military applications. This research will provide a viable way to fight against pinpoint attacks, advance the state-of-the-art in the wireless security research, and spark new research activities in securing MANETs. Moreover, the results from this research will be disseminated widely through high-quality conference and journal publications and public talks. Furthermore, the research outcome will be integrated into the educational curricula across two institutions. Finally, a couple of minority (female) students will work for their Ph.D. degrees, and hence this project will train the minority professionals for the national work force.