{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,12]],"date-time":"2025-10-12T03:36:32Z","timestamp":1760240192878,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":23,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,8]],"date-time":"2019-04-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1554681600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Humanity and Social Science Youth foundation of Ministry of Education of China;","award":["18YJCZH068, 17YJCZH033"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["18YJCZH068, 17YJCZH033"]}]},{"name":"Natural Science Research Projects in Colleges and Universities of Jiangsu Province","award":["18KJB520002"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["18KJB520002"]}]},{"name":"Research Start-up Fund Project of Changshu Institute of Technology","award":["KYZ2018005Q"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["KYZ2018005Q"]}]},{"name":"Zhejiang Provincial Education Department Research Foundation of China","award":["Y201636127"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Y201636127"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Information"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In the utility-based routing protocol of delay-tolerant networks (DTNs), nodes calculate routing utility value by encounter time, frequency, and so on, and then forward messages according to the utility. The privacy information of encounter time and frequency will be leaked when nodes communicate with real IDs. Node ID anonymity can protect the privacy information, but it also prevents nodes from collecting encounter information to calculate the real utility value. To solve the above problem, this paper proposes a privacy-preserving protocol for utility-based routing (PPUR) in DTNs. When node encounter occurs in PPUR, they anonymously generate and collect the encounter record information by pseudo-IDs. Then, nodes forward the information to a trusted authority (TA), which calculates the routing utility value and returns it to the nodes, so that nodes can protect the privacy information and obtain the real utility value at the same time. PPUR also protects the confidentiality and integrity of messages through hashing and digital signature. The experimental results show that PPUR can not only protect nodes\u2019 privacy information, but also effectively forward messages with real utility value.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/info10040128","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,8]],"date-time":"2019-04-08T11:54:52Z","timestamp":1554724492000},"page":"128","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["A Privacy-Preserving Protocol for Utility-Based Routing in DTNs"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"10","author":[{"given":"Qingfeng","family":"Jiang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Engineering, Changshu Institute of Technology, Changshu 225500, China"}]},{"given":"Kun","family":"Deng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Mathematics Physics and Information Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314001, China"}]},{"given":"Lei","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Information and Electronic Technology, Jiamusi University, Jiamusi 154007, China"}]},{"given":"Chun","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Information Technology, Daqing Normal University, Daqing 163712, China"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fall, K. 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