ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the problems that arise when designing a key management scheme for wireless mesh networks (WMN). It discusses the convenience of using asymmetric cryptography mechanisms instead of symmetric cryptography ones and the use of solutions that require tampering resistant nodes and misbehavior detection schemes. The use of key management protocols that require exchange of messages between two nodes that need to forward routing information and that might never see each other again is, most of the time, not a choice. It would be great if the key management scheme would not need to send any additional messages besides the ones used for the routing protocol. In WMNs that are created in an ad hoc manner, node identity must be its private key that can be used to sign messages and be verified by others with the node’s public key.
