Achieving K-anonymity in mobile ad hoc networks

A zone-based K-anonymity routing protocol is proposed and investigated, the goal of which is to achieve destination anonymity in positioning routing algorithms. Under this protocol, the source sends the data to an anonymity zone, where the destination node and a number of other nodes are located. The data is flooded within the anonymity zone so that to a tracer is not able to guess which is the destination node. The paper presents the details of the protocol design and proposes two approaches for anonymity zone management. In particular, we have found out that initially setting anonymity zone large can help to meet the destination anonymity requirement for longer time at a relatively low control overhead.