K. Keerthi
Anonymous routing protocols are used by the existing Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) to hide node identities and/or routes from outside observers. However, existing anonymous routing protocols relying on either hop-by-hop encryption or redundant traffic either generate high cost or cannot provide full anonymity protection. To offer high anonymity protection at a low cost, an Anonymous Location-based Efficient Routing protocol (ALERT) is proposed. ALERT dynamically partitions the network field into zones and randomly chooses nodes in zones as intermediate relay nodes, which form a non-traceable anonymous route. In addition, it hides the data initiator/receiver. Thus, ALERT offers anonymity protection to sources, destinations, and routes.