Delay and cost performance analysis of the diffie-hellman key exchange protocol in opportunistic mobile networks

B Soelistijanto,V Muliadi

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/978/1/012016

Abstract

Diffie-Hellman (DH) provides an efficient key exchange system by reducing the number of cryptographic keys distributed in the network. In this method, a node broadcasts a single public key to all nodes in the network, and in turn each peer uses this key to establish a shared secret key which then can be utilized to encrypt and decrypt traffic between the peer and the given node. In this paper, we evaluate the key transfer delay and cost performance of DH in opportunistic mobile networks, a specific scenario of MANETs where complete end-to-end paths rarely exist between sources and destinations; consequently, the end-to-end delays in these networks are much greater than typical MANETs. Simulation results, driven by a random node movement model and real human mobility traces, showed that DH outperforms a typical key distribution scheme based on the RSA algorithm in terms of key transfer delay, measured by average key convergence time; however, DH performs as well as the benchmark in terms of key transfer cost, evaluated by total key (copies) forwards.

Highlights

The subject of key distribution is one of the important issues in key management [1]
Automatic distribution is more convenient, but often even essential; for instance, in telephone or computer networks, which require two parties to transmit their security keys along the same communication line. In these cases often two types of keys are employed: keys which are used for the actual security of the data, and keys which are used for the security of these session keys during transmission
In order to benchmark the performance of DH, we consider a typical key distribution scheme based on the RSA algorithm as follows

Summary

Introduction

The subject of key distribution is one of the important issues in key management [1]. Automatic distribution is more convenient, but often even essential; for instance, in telephone or computer networks, which require two parties to transmit their security keys along the same communication line. The Diffie-Hellman (DH) protocol [2] is a method for exchanging keys in the network In this algorithm, two parties unknown to one another can set up a private arbitrary key for their symmetric key cryptosystem. A low key transfer latency is required to achieve high performance of DH In this analysis, we consider average key convergence time to identify the key transfer delay performance of DH in OMNs. Besides transfer delay, delivery cost is an important parameter in mobile communication networks, since mobile devices typically have limited resources, e.g. storage and power. Total key (copies) forwards: the total number of key (copies) forwarded during node contacts throughout the simulation time

Secret key SB

DH RSA

Total key forwards

Conclusion