| People are connected through a network of friends and acquaintances, most using multiple electronic devices to foster those relationships. First responders and the military work in chaotic environments with the potential for disjointed or destroyed communication infrastructure and must have the capability to establish ad-hoc networks in remote areas. In social, disaster relief, military situations, and sensor networks, there is a growing need for a class of Resource Constraint Networks (RCN). A RCN is a network where some node or network resource constrains the use of traditional Information Assurance (IA) protocols or practices. This can leave security vulnerabilities that are exploitable for nefarious purposes. A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is an example of a RCN where the battery power on a node is limited. In many WSNs, nodes communicate using a half-duplex system with only one transmitter/receiver in order to reduce hardware battery consumption. This, along with small buffers, restricts routing information stored locally and affects information availability. Processing is at a premium as each computation draws from the limited battery power, making many traditional encryption schemes costly. A second example of a RCN is a Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) where nodes are connected intermittently and ad-hoc. The connection between nodes is ever shifting as they move. The primary network constraint in a DTN is a lack of end-to-end routing knowledge. In addition to making routing challenging, the use of centralized servers is difficult if not impossible. In both a WSN and a DTN, determining trust between nodes is not trivial.;In all networks, security and privacy of data as it flows from source to destination is paramount. Information Assurance (IA) has not been properly addressed in RCNs. This dissertation will focus on five key IA services: availability, integrity, confidentiality, authentication, and non-repudiation. Due to the nature of a RCN, it is challenging to provide IA services. Most of the research in RCNs has focused on availability by proposing schemes to efficiently move data packets while minimizing delay and device resources such as buffer space, battery power, and processing. While this research is important, the resulting increase can quickly be lost if the other IA services such as integrity or confidentiality are not maintained. This dissertation explores challenges associated with IA in RCNs and proposes a trust management scheme to defend by exploring clues for use in distributed trust management, integration of direct and indirect clues to create a distributed trust management scheme, and introduces a Trust Based Secure Routing (TBSR) protocol for use in a Delay Tolerant Network. |
