Adaptive trust-based anonymous network

A novel Adaptive Trust-based Anonymous Network (ATAN) is proposed. The distributed and decentralised network management in ATAN does not require a central authority so that ATAN alleviates the problem of a single point of failure. In some existing anonymous networks, packets are routed onto intermediate nodes anonymously without knowing whether these nodes are trustworthy. On the other hand, an intermediate node should ensure that packets which it forwards are not malicious and it will not be allegedly accused of involving in the attack. To meet these objectives, the intermediate node only forwards packets received from the ‘trusted’ predecessor, which can be either the source or another intermediate node. In ATAN, our trust and reputation model aims to enhance anonymity by establishing a trust and reputation relationship between the source and the forwarding members. The trust and reputation relationship of any two nodes is adaptive to new information learned by these two nodes or recommended from other trust nodes. Therefore, packets are anonymously routed from the ‘trusted’ source to the destination through ‘trusted’ intermediate nodes, thereby improving anonymity of communications.