Revocation Games: Strategies for Misbehavior in Ephemeral Networks

1. RevocationGames inEphemeral Networks Maxim Raya, Mohammad Hossein Manshaei, MárkFélegyházi, Jean-Pierre Hubaux CCS 2008

2. Misbehavior in Ad Hoc Networks Traditional ad hoc networks Ephemeral networks A B M • Packet forwarding • Routing • Large scale • High mobility • Data dissemination Solution to misbehavior: Reputation systems ?

3. Reputation vs. Local Revocation • Reputation systems: • Often coupled with routing/forwarding • Require long-term monitoring • Keep the misbehaving nodes in the system • Local Revocation • Fast and clear-cut reaction to misbehavior • Reported to the credential issuer • Can be repudiated

4. Tools of the Revocation Trade • Wait for: • Credential expiration • Central revocation • Vote with: • Fixed number of votes • Fixed fraction of nodes (e.g., majority) • Suicide: • Both the accusing and accused nodes are revoked Whichtool to use?

5. How much does it cost? • Nodes are selfish • Revocation costs • Attacks cause damage How to avoid the free rider problem? Game theory can help: models situations where the decisions of players affect eachother

6. Example: VANET • CA pre-establishes credentials offline • Each node has multiple changing pseudonyms • Pseudonyms are costly • Fraction of detectors =

7. Revocation Game • Key principle: Revoke only costly attackers • Strategies: • Abstain (A) • Vote (V): votes are needed • Self-sacrifice (S) • benign nodes, including detectors • attackers • Dynamic (sequential) game

8. Game with fixed costs 1 A S V A: Abstain S: Self-sacrifice V: Vote 2 2 A A S V S V 3 3 3 A S V A S V A S V Costof abstaining Cost of self-sacrifice Cost of voting All costs are in keys/message

9. Game withfixedcosts: Example 1 Equilibrium 1 A S V 2 2 Backward induction A A S V S V 3 3 3 A S V A S V A S V Assumptions:c > 1

10. Game withfixedcosts: Example 2 Equilibrium 1 A S V 2 2 A A S V S V 3 3 3 A S V A S V A S V Assumptions:v < c < 1, n = 2

11. Game with fixed costs: Equilibrium Theorem 1: For any given values of ni,nr,v, and c, the strategy of player i that results in a subgame-perfect equilibrium is: ni=Number of remaining nodes that can participate in the game nr =Number of remaining votes that is required to revoke Revocation is left to the end, doesn’t work in practice

12. Game with variable costs 1 A S V 2 2 A S V 3 S Number of stages Attack damage

13. Game with variable costs: Equilibrium Theorem 2:For any given values of ni,nr,v, and δ, the strategy of player i that results in a subgame-perfect equilibrium is: Revocation has to be quick

14. Optimal number of voters • Minimize: Abuse by attackers Duration of attack

15. Optimal number of voters • Minimize: Abuse by attackers Duration of attack Fraction of active players

16. RevoGame Estimation of parameters Choice of strategy

17. Evaluation • TraNS, ns2, Google Earth, Manhattan • 303 vehicles, average speed = 50 km/h • Fraction of detectors • Damage/stage • Cost of voting • False positives • 50 runs, 95 % confidence intervals

18. Revoked attackers

19. Revoked benign nodes

20. Social cost

21. Maximum time to revocation

22. Global effect of local revocations How many benign nodes ignore an attacker?

23. False positives and abuse How many benign nodes ignore a benign node?

24. Conclusion • Local revocation is a viable mechanism for handling misbehavior in ephemeral networks • The choice of revocation strategies should depend on their costs • RevoGame achieves the elusive tradeoff between different strategies