Trust-based Scheme for Cheating and Collusion Detection in Wireless Multihop Networks

To evaluate a node’s cooperativeness/selfishness behaviour in a heterogeneous wireless environment, global reports from other nodes in wireless multihop networks (WMNs) may be required to strengthen the judgment made using local observation. However, it cannot be assumed that a node is always honest in sharing the behaviour information. A group of nodes might collude to falsely accuse/praise a particular node to gain communication benefits at the cost of other nodes’ resources. This paper proposes a filtering mechanism named Trust Features-based Evidence (TFE) by formulating evidence that is based on trust features to reduce the number of liar nodes and thus, ensuring the authenticity of the shared information. Assisted by an efficient cross-checking algorithm, the TFE mechanism is able to reduce the number of cheating nodes over time and the rate of illegitimate collusion, by having detected cheaters aware that the only way to survive in the network is by presenting genuine information.