MoHoP: A protocol providing for both mobility management and host privacy

Abstract

The types and numbers of moving objects connected to the Internet are rapidly increasing. Thus, a number of methods have been proposed to provide mobility to moving objects and to ensure host privacy. However, when both methods are applied at the same time without considering their interoperation, either host privacy cannot be provided or packets are delivered to an incorrect location. In this paper, we propose a protocol termed MoHoP which provides both mobility management and host privacy simultaneously. MoHoP obtains the identifier of a mobile node by decoding an anonymized identifier included in a packet. Using the obtained identifier in a distributed hash table, it finds an edge router to which a mobile node is connected, and delivers the packet. We implemented MoHoP in a testbed and proved that it supports mobility. Moreover, the identifier of a mobile node is not exposed in a packet header during the packet transmission process. Our experiment also demonstrated that MoHoP offers low protocol overhead and low handover delay.