Defending sybil attacks in mobile social networks

Abstract

Mobile social networks (MSNs) are a kind of delay tolerant network that consists of lots of mobile nodes with social characteristics. Recently, many social-aware algorithms have been proposed to address routing problems in MSNs. However, it also brings more security and privacy concerns. In this paper, we discuss a specific type of Sybil attack in MSNs, which few researches has been focused on. We proposed a security mechanism to detect Sybil nodes and eliminate them to ensure the routing security while routing forwarding. It needs to cooperate by two sides, which is, respectively measuring distance in client side and eliminating Sybil nodes in server side. We also demonstrate the solution is correct and analyze its energy costs.