Towards Securing Disruption-Tolerant Networking

Most of the existing Internet applications are built on the assumption of immediate end-to-end connectivity. However, there are many scenarios, like messaging in sparsely populated areas, in which immediate connectivity is not available. Traditional approaches for communication security may not apply in such disruption-prone environments. Recently, the use of identity-based cryptography has been proposed as one way to help solve some of the security issues in disruption-tolerant networks (DTNs). In this paper we discuss the security issues of DTNs, survey proposed solutions, and identify some improvements. In particular, we consider the applicability of identity-based cryptography as a solution for delay tolerant networking security, investigate how security in DTNs can be bootstrapped from existing large-scale security infrastructures, like the cellular communication security infrastructure, and present an improved scheme for authentication of fragments