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Mobile ad-hoc networking works properly only if the participating nodes cooperate in routing and forwarding. However,it may be advantageous for individual nodes not to cooperate. We propose a protocol, called CONFIDANT, for making misbehavior unattractive; it is based on selective altruism and utilitarianism. It aims at detecting and isolating misbehaving nodes, thus making it unattractive to deny cooperation. Trust relationships and routing decisions are based on experienced, observed, or reported routing and forwarding behavior of other nodes. The detailed implementation of CONFIDANT in this paper assumes that the network layer is based on the Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol. We present a performance analysis of DSR fortified by CONFIDANT and compare it to regular defenseless DSR. It shows that a network with CONFIDANT and up to 60% of misbehaving nodes behaves almost as well as a benign network, in sharp contrast to a defenseless network. All simulations have been implemented and performed in GloMoSim.
Buchegger et al. (Sun,) studied this question.