Security and Privacy Issues in Special-Purpose Networks: Open problems and solutions

In this book we study different aspects regarding security and privacy issues related to sensor networks, mobile ad hoc networks, vehicular ad hoc networks and social networks. Sensor networks have a wide variety of applications related to event surveillance like emergency response or habitat monitoring. Ad hoc networks are suited for use in situations where deploying an infrastructure is not cost effective or is not possible for any other reason. When the nodes of an ad hoc network are small mobile devices (cell phones or PDAs), such a network is called mobile ad hoc network. If mobile nodes are embedded in cars, then that network is called vehicular ad hoc network. Social networks differ from the special-purpose networks commented above in that they are not physical networks. Social networks are applications that work through classic networks. They can be defined as a community of web users where each user can publish and share information and services. Open problems and different solutions providing secure and private information transmission in each scenario are presented.