Applicability of identity-based cryptography for disruption-tolerant networking

Abstract

Traditional approaches for communication security do not work well in disruption- and delay-tolerant networks (DTNs). Recently, the use of identity-based cryptography (IBC) has been proposed as one way to help solve some of the DTN security issues. We analyze the applicability of IBC in this context and conclude that for authentication and integrity, IBC has no significant advantage over traditional cryptography, but it can indeed enable better ways of providing confidentiality. Additionally, we show a way of bootstrapping the needed security associations for IBC use from an existing authentication infrastructure.