A key distribution scheme using network coding for mobile ad hoc network

Network coding offers an excellent solution for maximizing throughput in various networks. Because of its simplicity and high efficiency, the idea of network coding can also be used for designing lightweight key distribution schemes for wireless ad hoc network. This paper presents a key distribution scheme that exploits the inherent security properties of network coding. The new scheme relies on simple XOR network coding operations to provide data confidentiality and uses message authentication codes to guarantee the integrity of the distributed keys. We also show that our scheme can resist a series of attacks in wireless ad hoc network and has better performance compared with previous schemes proposed in the literature.