Opportunistic key management in delay tolerant networks

Abstract

Key management is considered to be a challenging task in delay tolerant networks (DTNs) operating in environments with adverse communication conditions such as space, due to the practical limitations and constraints prohibiting effective closed-loop communications. In this paper, we propose opportunistic key management as a more suitable solution for key management in networks requiring opportunistic behaviour. We show that opportunistic key management is better exploited and utilised when used in conjunction with routing decisions by security aware DTN nodes.