A Highly Reliable Access Control Model for Ad Hoc Networks

Unlike the conventional networks, the unique characteristics of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) pose a number of nontrivial challenges for pervasive service provision. Particularly, mobility of users/devices causes un-predefined and unpredictable changes in physical location and in available resources and services, event at runtime and during the same service session, thus forcing us to consider very dynamic aspects of evaluation when designing a security access control model. Alternatively, there is generally no a priori trust relationship among entities interacting in ad hoc networks which makes it essential to establish trust from scratch. This task becomes extremely challenging when it is simultaneously necessary to protect the privacy of the users involved. In this study, we show how trust evaluation process of a system can be based on previous interactions and peer recommendations. Regarding the combination of these two factors, our trust-aware access control model can establish appropriate trust values for different situations, providing a confident supervision mechanism for ad hoc users.