AN ANALYSIS OF MOBILE OPPORTUNISTIC NETWORKS
Opportunistic network is a wireless network. It is an extension of mobile ad hoc networks. This network has a special characteristic called intermittent connectivity. It means that connections are not stable and occur at irregular intervals. Connection availability depends on the suitability of selecting a node which can carry the message closer to the destination or to the destination itself. End-to-end connections for transmission of data are unavailable and knowledge about network topology is absent, hence store and forward technique is used for data transmission and routes are established dynamically. Here, intermediate nodes are used for the delivery of message to its intended destination. These intermediate nodes store the messages with them until they find any other suitable node in their communication range which can successfully take the message closer to the destination. Once a node is found within the range, message is forwarded to that node. Now this selected node will find another suitable node in its range and the process is repeated until there is successful delivery to the destination. As every node has an opportunity to select a suitable node in their range, so these networks are known as opportunistic networks. Opportunistic network has various privacy and security challenges. There is not a fixed infrastructure present in this network and the message is forwarded through many intermediate nodes, so there may be attacker nodes in the network which can drop the packets of a particular node as the identity of the user is exposed to the malicious node. Hence, a novel scheme is proposed to overcome this privacy issue.