Embedding Trust in the Media Access Control Protocol for Wireless Networks
IEEE 802.11 is one of the most common medium access control (MAC) protocols used in wireless networks. The carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) mechanisms in 802.11 have been designed under the assumption that all nodes in the network are cooperative and trustworthy. Howe...
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2025-01-01
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| _version_ | 1832587586922610688 |
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| author | Chaminda Alocious Hannan Xiao Bruce Christianson Joseph Spring |
| author_facet | Chaminda Alocious Hannan Xiao Bruce Christianson Joseph Spring |
| author_sort | Chaminda Alocious |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | IEEE 802.11 is one of the most common medium access control (MAC) protocols used in wireless networks. The carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) mechanisms in 802.11 have been designed under the assumption that all nodes in the network are cooperative and trustworthy. However, the potential for non-cooperative nodes exists, nodes that may purposefully misbehave in order to, for example, obtain extra bandwidth, conserve their resources, or disrupt network performance. This issue is further compounded when receivers such as Wi-Fi hotspots, normally trusted by other module nodes, also misbehave. Such issues, their detection, and mitigation have, we believe, not been sufficiently addressed in the literature. This research proposes a novel trust-incorporated MAC protocol (TMAC) which detects and mitigates complex node misbehavior for distributed network environments. TMAC introduces three main features into the original IEEE 802.11 protocol. First, each node assesses a trust level for their neighbors, establishing a verifiable backoff value generation mechanism with an incorporated trust model involving senders, receivers, and common neighbors. Second, TMAC uses a collaborative penalty scheme to penalize nodes that deviate from the IEEE 802.11 protocol. This feature removes the assumption of a trusted receiver. Third, a TMAC diagnosis mechanism is carried out for each distributed node periodically, to reassess neighbor status and to reclassify each based on their trust value. Simulation results in ns2 showed that TMAC is effective in diagnosing and starving selfish or misbehaving nodes in distributed wireless networks, improving the performance of trustworthy well-behaving nodes. The significant feature of TMAC is its ability to detect sender, receiver, and colluding node misbehavior at the MAC layer with a high level of accuracy, without the need to trust any of the communicating parties. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-9ec73b2604424729a553b0122420ea3f |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1424-8220 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Sensors |
| spelling | doaj-art-9ec73b2604424729a553b0122420ea3f2025-01-24T13:48:37ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202025-01-0125235410.3390/s25020354Embedding Trust in the Media Access Control Protocol for Wireless NetworksChaminda Alocious0Hannan Xiao1Bruce Christianson2Joseph Spring3Department of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UKDepartment of Informatics, King’s College London, London WC2R 2LS, UKDepartment of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UKDepartment of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UKIEEE 802.11 is one of the most common medium access control (MAC) protocols used in wireless networks. The carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) mechanisms in 802.11 have been designed under the assumption that all nodes in the network are cooperative and trustworthy. However, the potential for non-cooperative nodes exists, nodes that may purposefully misbehave in order to, for example, obtain extra bandwidth, conserve their resources, or disrupt network performance. This issue is further compounded when receivers such as Wi-Fi hotspots, normally trusted by other module nodes, also misbehave. Such issues, their detection, and mitigation have, we believe, not been sufficiently addressed in the literature. This research proposes a novel trust-incorporated MAC protocol (TMAC) which detects and mitigates complex node misbehavior for distributed network environments. TMAC introduces three main features into the original IEEE 802.11 protocol. First, each node assesses a trust level for their neighbors, establishing a verifiable backoff value generation mechanism with an incorporated trust model involving senders, receivers, and common neighbors. Second, TMAC uses a collaborative penalty scheme to penalize nodes that deviate from the IEEE 802.11 protocol. This feature removes the assumption of a trusted receiver. Third, a TMAC diagnosis mechanism is carried out for each distributed node periodically, to reassess neighbor status and to reclassify each based on their trust value. Simulation results in ns2 showed that TMAC is effective in diagnosing and starving selfish or misbehaving nodes in distributed wireless networks, improving the performance of trustworthy well-behaving nodes. The significant feature of TMAC is its ability to detect sender, receiver, and colluding node misbehavior at the MAC layer with a high level of accuracy, without the need to trust any of the communicating parties.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/2/354IEEE 802.11CSMA/CAwireless networksnetwork securityMACtrust |
| spellingShingle | Chaminda Alocious Hannan Xiao Bruce Christianson Joseph Spring Embedding Trust in the Media Access Control Protocol for Wireless Networks Sensors IEEE 802.11 CSMA/CA wireless networks network security MAC trust |
| title | Embedding Trust in the Media Access Control Protocol for Wireless Networks |
| title_full | Embedding Trust in the Media Access Control Protocol for Wireless Networks |
| title_fullStr | Embedding Trust in the Media Access Control Protocol for Wireless Networks |
| title_full_unstemmed | Embedding Trust in the Media Access Control Protocol for Wireless Networks |
| title_short | Embedding Trust in the Media Access Control Protocol for Wireless Networks |
| title_sort | embedding trust in the media access control protocol for wireless networks |
| topic | IEEE 802.11 CSMA/CA wireless networks network security MAC trust |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/2/354 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT chamindaalocious embeddingtrustinthemediaaccesscontrolprotocolforwirelessnetworks AT hannanxiao embeddingtrustinthemediaaccesscontrolprotocolforwirelessnetworks AT brucechristianson embeddingtrustinthemediaaccesscontrolprotocolforwirelessnetworks AT josephspring embeddingtrustinthemediaaccesscontrolprotocolforwirelessnetworks |