A secure MANET routing protocol for first responders

Emergency and rescue operations are often carried out
in areas where the network infrastructure cannot be relied
on for message exchange between first responders. Since
the fundamental feature of Mobile Ad Hoc Network is the
ability to operate independently of existing infrastructure, it
is deemed a well suited solution to first responders scenarios.
In this paper we describe a security extension to the OLSR
routing protocol specifically designed for first responders
scenarios. Our proposed protocol provides node authentication
and access control using asymmetric encryption and
digital certificates. A link encryption scheme is devised to
allow for efficient encryption of data even in broadcast
mode, without the need for a network wide shared key. By
utilising pairwise symmetric keys for link confidentiality, our
solution is both efficient and scalable.