Exploiting Routing Strategy of DTN for Message Forwarding in Information Hiding Applications

Abstract

Delay tolerant networks (DTNs) represent a class of intermittently connected networks. In such networks, messages are hard to track since they are transmitted by opportunistic encounters between mobile nodes. This feature makes DTN an appropriate masking channel for information hiding systems. However, the DTN often has poor communication quality, given that it suffers from frequent disruptions. In order to improve the communication quality of DTN and meet the needs of information hiding system, an efficient routing strategy is proposed in this article. On the other hand, in information hiding systems, a relatively long Time-To-Live (TTL) of messages will increase the risk of the message being exposed. To achieve a balance between delivery ratio and concealment, the sensitivity of message TTL is analyzed and a suitable value of lifetime is given. Finally, the simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can improve the effectiveness of message transmission, and the DTN can be used as masking channel to realize information hiding system.