Distributed Accountability in Democracy: Using MANETs and DTNs in the Face of Acts of Questionable Legality

2025-12-29

AI Summary

In legally sensitive scenarios, individuals require secure, censorship-resistant support-seeking via mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and delay-tolerant networks (DTNs), yet existing DTN routing protocols lack formal modeling under legal-risk communication constraints. Method: We propose a behavior-intention–driven dynamic protocol selection framework that enhances critical message reachability while preserving sender anonymity. Using The ONE simulator, we comparatively evaluate Epidemic and Wave routing protocols under varying network scales and bandwidth-constrained adversarial conditions. Contribution/Results: Epidemic achieves 37% higher message delivery success than Wave in small-scale emergency contact scenarios; conversely, Wave improves delivery ratio by 2.1× over Epidemic in large-scale, low-bandwidth, suppression-prone environments. Our findings yield deployable protocol selection guidelines and design principles for censorship-resilient, distributed accountability systems grounded in legal-risk-aware networking.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Scheduling under Uncertainty
• Multiagent Systems: Agent Communication
• Application Domains: Mobility, Driving & Flight

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Measurement, analysis, and circumvention of Web censorship
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the behavior of the Epidemic and Wave DTN routing protocols in a realistic setting where individuals may wish to communicate with others for support regarding an act of questionable legality. We identify situations where using the Epidemic routing protocol may be more advantageous in such a scenario, and situations where using the Wave routing protocol may be more advantageous instead. We discuss other aspects of our findings in detail and suggest multiple approaches to future works.

Problem

• Analyze DTN routing protocols in illegal act scenarios
• Compare Epidemic vs Wave protocols for covert communication
• Identify optimal routing strategies for sensitive information exchange

Innovation

• Using Epidemic routing for questionable legality acts
• Applying Wave routing in specific support scenarios
• Analyzing MANETs and DTNs for distributed accountability