Paper Title: A Token-Based Handshake Protocol for Secure Offline Communication in Tactical MANETs
Conference Name: IEEE Military Communications Conference
Abstract: Military vehicles operating in tactical mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) frequently encounter adversarial environments where connectivity to conventional communication infrastructure is unavailable or disrupted. Ensuring continuous, secure, and verifiable message exchange under such constraints remains a significant challenge. This paper presents a lightweight, infrastructure-independent message delivery framework based on a self-contained cryptographic token that combines authentication, integrity verification, and payload in a single structure. To support secure peer-to-peer exchange, a Schnorr-based mutual authentication handshake prevents spoofing and replay attacks. The framework is evaluated under varying communication ranges and connectivity levels, using metrics such as packet delivery ratio, latency, and SNR-based drops. Simulation results confirm the system’s ability to maintain secure and efficient message delivery even in fully disconnected scenarios, demonstrating its suitability for tactical military deployments.