There is a need to provide secure cryptographicservicesin dynamic network environments with un- trusted parties and a changing net topology. Cryptographic services are security services implemented by cryptographic mechanisms Examples of such services are confidentiality,authenticity, integrity, privacy, accountability,accessibility and non-repudiation. Privacy is a service that is often difficult to realize at the same time as other cryptographic services, like authenticity, accountability and non-repudiation. Parties in dynamic networking environments, like mobile ad hoc networks, where each node is acting as a combined terminal and router, would be particularly exposed to threats against their privacy since they have no control over the trustworthiness of network nodes that handle the messages sent. Appropriate privacy enhancing cryptographic mechanisms, that can be trusted to work as intended, are required to handle this problem. Some of the research in this area focuses on building a probabilistic security model for routing in dynamic networks which allows for quantification of the security offered by the protocols.

Project coordinator: Professor Svein J. Knapskog