Local management of credits and debits in mobile ad hoc networks

Nodes in mobile ad hoc networks often need the help of others in order to have their packets delivered to their destination. However, nodes may not be governed by a single authority and need not share a common goal. Thus, a selfish node may prefer to save resources for its own communication, rather than to forward packets for other nodes. We suggest to collect information about the forwarding of packets in the network in a decentralized manner. Through reception of acknowledgments, a node can update a local repository, on which the node can rely to judge the behavior of the other nodes. We define a secure structure for the acknowledgments and the rules for updating the local repository. Also, we discuss a solution to achieve a univocal identification of a node in MANET environments.