Distributed storage in wireless mesh networks

Secure data storage in tactical wireless mesh networks is mainly addressed by encryption of sensitive data using shared key concepts combined with encrypted wireless links. The nature of the applications (e.g. a situational awareness application among 10-100 nodes) leads to each mesh node sharing the majority of the network wide data. Hence, one or a handful of compromised/captured mesh nodes poses a significant security threat. However, resent work suggests the use of distributed storage systems that require a subset of nodes exchange data in order to access the stored information (e.g. Mobile Distributed File System, MDFS) making it harder for an adversary to gain access to the stored data via one or a few captured mesh nodes. Still, the proposed distributed storage systems do not take the dynamics of the wireless mesh network into account (failed wireless links due to fading, shadowing, mobility, joining/exiting nodes etc.) and the minimum set of required mesh nodes may not be reachable to read/write data to the file system rendering applications useless during mission critical operations. MaXentric proposes a distributed data storage solution based on a robust and delay tolerant information dissemination system designed for wireless mesh networks. The solution utilizes a combination of AES encryption, Shamir"s secret sharing algorithm and fountain coding to protect the network wide stored data in dynamic wireless mesh networks.