Identity-based Random Key Predistribution for Army Manets

We address a challenge to developing the Future Force — Army tactical networks require cryptographic keys to implement security services such as encryption and authentication, but current pairwise key establishment approaches using interactive public key techniques are too time-consuming. This paper describes identity-based cryptographic solutions that enable strong security and significantly reduce bandwidth consumption and latency, and provides three main contributions: (a) a description of how identity-based random key predistribution (IBRKP) can be used as a secure and efficient component within an Army tactical mobile ad hoc network (MANET) key management infrastructure; (b) a description of an attack on IBRKP resulting from targeted node compromises as opposed to random node compromises; and (c) a technique that creates “grainy” pool keys that increases security against targeted and random node compromise attacks.