Anonymity enabling scheme for wireless ad hoc networks

With the advances of wireless and mobile telecommunications, the pressing issues for the design of future wireless ad hoc network is when anonymity becomes one. In a wireless ad hoc network, communicating nodes usually seek the help of other intermediate nodes to establish communication channels. In such an environment, malicious intermediate nodes can be a threat to the security and/or anonymity of the exchanged data between the mobile nodes. While data encryption can protect the content exchanged between nodes, routing information may reveal valuable information about end users and their relationships. This paper proposes an anonymous routing protocol, similar to onion routing used in wired networks. Our protocol includes also a mechanism to establish trust and avoid untrustworthy nodes during the route discovery process. The major objective of our protocol is to allow trustworthy intermediate nodes to participate in the routing protocol without jeopardizing the anonymity of the communicating nodes.