SCONES: Secure Content-Oriented Networking for Exploring Space

We envision a secure content-oriented internetwork as a natural generalization of the cache-and-forward architecture inherent in delay-tolerant networks. Using our approach, users can specify their interests or publish content and expect infrastructure to securely match the supply and demand without loss of confidentiality. When doing so, users of a content-oriented network need not concern themselves about the location of the content. Our work addresses the following question: Can nodes in the space network make content-oriented forwarding, caching, and retrieval decisions based on encrypted metadata and encrypted interests (publish/subscribe advertisements) without decrypting them? We believe that recent developments in cryptography in the ares of secure multi-party computation and homomorphic encryption make this possible. We propose to develop fast pragmatic algorithms that can be implemented within the context of IETF Delay-Tolerant Networking and CCSDS Asynchronous Messaging Service protocols that are being evaluated by NASA to support future Space exploration missions.

Secure content-oriented networking has commercial applications in publish-subscribe systems, peer-to-peer networks, future Internet architectures, and scenarios that involve mobile and episodically connected users. Our approach enables content network infrastructure to be outsourced, and content caching and retrieval can occur without compromising the confidentiality. In addition the proposed effort has applications in the defense, the intelligence community, and in law enforcement, especially when significant resource sharing and collaboration across multiple organizations must occur over third party infrastructures.

A key benefit of the proposed innovation is that it enables third party infrastructure to serve as cache and forward relay nodes that make content-oriented decisions on caching and forwarding (so that resources are appropriately utilized) without loss of confidentiality. In other words, using the proposed approach, an intermediate node can match content to user subscriptions without learning anything about the content. This will become increasingly important as NASA moves toward its vision of a shared Space Communications and Navigation infrastructure that will be shared across multi-national missions and organizations. The work, although motivated using networks for space exploration, applies equally to other NASA enterprise networks in which scientists require secure and seamless access to content.

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