Securing Delay-Tolerant Networks with BPSec

3DTN Security Stressors and Strategies

Any discussion about secured communications within the Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) architecture must include analysis of the stressing conditions present in challenged environments. This includes an overview of the strategies employed by the DTN architecture. Since the BPv7 protocol suite is the recommended way to instantiate a DTN architecture, the analyses presented in this chapter capture some of the design constraints levied on BPv7 and BPSec during their development.

After reading this chapter you will be able to:

• Distinguish DTN architectures from other network architectures.
• List reasons why BPv7 requires custom security extensions.
• Identify stressing conditions unique to DTN security.
• Explain common approaches to these unique stressing conditions.

3.1 DTN Constraints

In 2007, the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) published informational RFC 4838 titled Delay-Tolerant Network Architecture [1], which documented the rationale and design constraints inherent in certain types of challenged communications environments. In 2022, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) published standards for BPv7 and BPSec that implement the transport and security portions of the DTN architecture.

[DTN] is an evolution of the architecture originally designed for the Interplanetary Internet, a communication system envisioned to provide Internet-like services across interplanetary distances in support of deep space exploration.

DTN Architecture, ...