[Olsr-dev] "Secure" Mesh networks

[Roar Bjørgum Rotvik]

Henning Rogge wrote:
> On Tue February 9 2010 08:41:51 Roar Bjørgum Rotvik wrote:
>> Regarding the distribution of the shared key; We also designed a system for
>>  establishing trust and sharing the shared key to new nodes as long as they
>>  are trusted by one of the nodes already part of the "secure" network. This
>>  solution was meant to establish a shared key before starting up olsrd with
>>  the secure plugin using this shared key. I did not work on this part and
>>  does not remember all the details from my head, sorry.
 >
> Do you have a link to this second part ? Without an automatic key distribution 
> the secure plugin is only usable for very small closed node groups.

Sorry, not at this time. It was not open sourced as far as I know. I may look into it, but 
with little spare time on my hands I don't know when I get the time to investigate.

> My problem with the shared groupkey concept is that it is too easy to evade 
> once you get the key. For routing security we need some kind of lightweight 
> signature for OLSR messages, so each message can prove it was created by the 
> originator. Simply using RSA/ECC is not an option, because it's too slow on 
> embedded platforms.

Yes, of course this solution depends on the shared key, so it must not be available to 
other persons. But you have to judge you threat level here. If your nodes are physically 
secured well enough for the assumed threat level, it should be sufficient.

That means that I would not use the "secure" plugin as-is in a hostile environment with a 
high possibility that someone may obtain and disassemble one of my "secure" nodes. It is 
not designed for that.

-- 
Roar Bjørgum Rotvik