Article: An adaptive tit-for-tat strategy for IEEE 802.11 CSMA/CA protocol Journal: International Journal of Security and Networks (IJSN) 2012 Vol.7 No.2 pp.95 - 106 Abstract: In non-cooperative environments, selfish nodes can take advantage of the mechanisms in place to obtain unfair shares of the network resources. Unfortunately, they may impact the performance of the other nodes. Our objective is to propose a novel IEEE 802.11 medium access control protocol, which can fairly share the resources among cooperative nodes but can retaliate if some selfish ones are present. We first show that the classical jamming method is inappropriate. We then present a novel game theoretical strategy designed to cope with the short-term unfairness of resource sharing. Our reputation-based tit-for-tat mechanism is immune to infrequent misclassification errors and motivates rational selfish nodes to cooperate. It depends on the observation of the nodes' behaviour. If any node misbehaves, the monitoring nodes should adapt and behave themselves selfishly. Thus, rational nodes should not have any other choice than to follow the legitimate behaviour in order to maximise their payoff. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: An adaptive tit-for-tat strategy for IEEE 802.11 CSMA/CA protocol

Authors: Stéphane Boyer; Jean-Marc Robert; Hadi Otrok; Clément Rousseau

Addresses: Département de Génie Logiciel et des TI, École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), Montréal, Québec, Canada. ' Département de Génie Logiciel et des TI, École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), Montréal, Québec, Canada. ' Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research (KUSTAR), Abu Dhabi, UAE. ' Département de Génie Logiciel et des TI, École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), Montréal, Québec, Canada

Abstract: In non-cooperative environments, selfish nodes can take advantage of the mechanisms in place to obtain unfair shares of the network resources. Unfortunately, they may impact the performance of the other nodes. Our objective is to propose a novel IEEE 802.11 medium access control protocol, which can fairly share the resources among cooperative nodes but can retaliate if some selfish ones are present. We first show that the classical jamming method is inappropriate. We then present a novel game theoretical strategy designed to cope with the short-term unfairness of resource sharing. Our reputation-based tit-for-tat mechanism is immune to infrequent misclassification errors and motivates rational selfish nodes to cooperate. It depends on the observation of the nodes' behaviour. If any node misbehaves, the monitoring nodes should adapt and behave themselves selfishly. Thus, rational nodes should not have any other choice than to follow the legitimate behaviour in order to maximise their payoff.

Keywords: 802.11 CSMA/CA; selfish behaviour; cooperation; reputation systems; tit-for-tat strategies; selfish nodes; network resources; medium access control; MAC; game theory; short-term unfairness; resource sharing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSN.2012.050026

International Journal of Security and Networks, 2012 Vol.7 No.2, pp.95 - 106

Published online: 24 Oct 2012 *

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Title: An adaptive tit-for-tat strategy for IEEE 802.11 CSMA/CA protocol

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