Securing Ad Hoc Networks

Zhou, Lidong and Zygmunt J. Haas (1999). Securing Ad Hoc Networks. IEEE
network, special issue on network security, November/December, 1999.
www.cs.cornell.edu/home/ldzhou/adhoc.pdf
This article, while now a number of years old, provides a good
introduction to some of the security issues associated with ad hoc
networks, and ways to secure them. The article also explains how ad hoc
networks are different from traditional mobile wireless networks. In
short, “in an ad hoc network, there is no fixed infrastructure such as
base stations or mobile switching centers. Mobile nodes that are within
each other’s radio range communicate directly via wireless links, while
those that are far apart rely on other nodes to relay messages as
routers.” Because nodes are mobile, there are frequent changes in the
structure of the network, e.g. in what is connected to what.