Anonymous yet traceable wireless mesh networking

Anonymity is a highly desirable feature in distributed networking environments. Especially in wireless mesh networks (WMNs) in which communicating nodes are spatially dispersed and packets have to go through open wireless channels over multiple hops before arriving at the destinations. Without a sufficient level of anonymity, critical and sensitive information could be easily revealed to third-parties. This will leave the network vulnerable to possible attacks such as spoofing, Sybil attack, and denial of service (DoS).;This dissertation will present research and findings that provision anonymity features to wireless communication systems at the link and network layers. Namely, this dissertation describes an anonymous Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol that utilizes consensus frequency hopping algorithm, called Spectrum Agile Medium Access (SAMA), and two anonymous routing protocols that provide uni-cast and multicast services, called On-Demand Anonymous Routing (ODAR) and Anonymous Core Assisted Multicast Routing (ACAMR), respectively. Using these networking protocols, we intend to provide the following anonymity goals---(a) identity anonymity to hide the correspondents' information, (b) route/path anonymity to hide the routing information, (c) topology/location anonymity to hide the network structure information.;For networking administration purposes, the traceability and accountability of data packets are important for both network trouble shooting, and potential threats identification purposes. CoordinAted Packet TRAceback (CAPTRA) was designed to provide the necessary mechanisms to track down packets in WMNs even with anonymous networking capabilities. CAPTRA is presented as a companion component to the our proposed anonymous networking protocols.;In both anonymous networking and packet tracking protocols we have utilized an efficient data structure, known as a Bloom filter, to provide irreversible identity obfuscation and memory space efficiency. Using Bloom filters, we were able to apply cryptographic mechanisms to further enhance the strength of our protocols.;The dissertation summarizes our previous publications on the aforementioned subjects in prestigious venues, and provides valuable insights to the complexity and performance issues of these algorithms and protocols that provisions anonymity in WMNs.