Policy-based design of secure mobile ad-hoc networks

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) provides a communication environment that is characterized by dynamic changes in the topology and in the availability of resources. Two main characteristics, if they exist, make the ad hoc network difficult to be managed, which are: 1. If the communicating nodes of the ad hoc network don't rely on a fixed infrastructure, and 2. If the nodes of the ad hoc network are mobile. Since the purpose of an ad-hoc network is to enable interactions between its participants, it is thus important to ensure that these interactions are governed by well-defined policies that define the rules for accessing services and resources in the network. Typically, the participants that form the network have to rely on each other to provide the services that they do not have on their own and usually, they do not have any a priori knowledge about each other. As a result, collaborations among them cannot be set up because they do not trust each other to use their respective services and resources. Therefore, there is a need for explicit specification of policies for each activity. In this paper, an architectural framework is introduced to adapt policy based access control RBAC models in the MANET environment.