Wireless Network Analysis and Protection

Project Summary

The wireless connectivity between nodes, and hence the set of reachable “neighbors” for a given wireless router, change constantly in response to a number of factors such as node mobility, RF pathloss caused by the surrounding terrain, mutual interference, and even the traffic load flowing through the network. Thus as a whole, the network forms an extremely complex system driven by thousands of distributed, inter-communicating state machines. Such networks are highly prone to various types of breakdowns in their emergent behavior, e.g. oscillations, collapse, and fragmentation of the network. At present, no one understands how such large networks can be protected against deliberate Denial of Service (DOS) attacks that attempt to induce oscillatory and/or collapsing system behavior. This project will research and investigate some of these areas including the areas of efficient, scalable, modeling of ad hoc wireless networks and network routing protocols for defense against DOS attacks.

• Project Lead: Chip Elliot (BBN)