Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2010/183

Preventing Pollution Attacks in Multi-Source Network Coding

Shweta Agrawal and Dan Boneh and Xavier Boyen and David Mandell Freeman

Abstract: Network coding is a method for achieving channel capacity in networks. The key idea is to allow network routers to linearly mix packets as they traverse the network so that recipients receive linear combinations of packets. Network coded systems are vulnerable to pollution attacks where a single malicious node floods the network with bad packets and prevents the receiver from decoding correctly. Cryptographic defenses to these problems are based on homomorphic signatures and MACs. These proposals, however, cannot handle mixing of packets from multiple sources, which is needed to achieve the full benefits of network coding. In this paper we address integrity of multi-source mixing. We propose a security model for this setting and provide a generic construction.

Category / Keywords: cryptographic protocols / network coding, signatures

Publication Info: Full version of paper to appear in PKC 2010

Date: received 5 Apr 2010

Contact author: dfreeman at cs stanford edu

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20100409:144826 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2010/183

Discussion forum: Show discussion | Start new discussion