An anti-replay window protocol with controlled shift

The anti-replay window protocol is used to secure IP against an adversary that can insert (possibly replayed) messages in the message stream from a source computer to a destination computer in the Internet. We discuss this important protocol and point out a potential problem faced by the protocol, in which severe reordering of messages can cause the protocol to discard a lot of good messages. We then introduce a controlled shift mechanism that can reduce the number of discarded good messages by sacrificing a relatively small number of messages. We use simulation to show that the modified protocol is more effective than the original protocol when a severe reordering of messages occurs. In particular, we show that the modified protocol reduces the number of discarded good messages by up to 70%