A Hash-chain Based Anonymous Incentive Mechanism for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

摘要

In the routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), both route setup and data transfer rely on the collaboration of participant nodes. The existing node incentive mechanisms for MANETs do not consider the privacy protection of the participant nodes;therefore, they cannot be applied to the network environments with high privacy protection requirements. This paper proposes an anonymous incentive mechanism (AIM) by introducing the hashchain based micro-payment mechanism to the DSR protocol. The proposed mechanism realizes the realtime stimulation to the participant nodes while preserving their anonymities in the routing. In contrast to the existing incentive mechanisms in MANETs, AIM protects the anonymity of nodes with reasonable overheads, and can withstand the common security attacks in the process of routing.