Relay selection based on social relationship prediction and information leakage reduction for mobile social networks

Despite the extensive study on relay selection in mobile social networks (MSNs), few work has taken both transmission latency (i.e. efficiency) and information leakage probability (i.e. security) into consideration. Therefore we target on designing an efficient and secure relay selection algorithm to enable communication among legitimate users while reducing the information leakage probability to other users. In this paper, we propose a novel mobility model for MSN users considering both the randomness and the sociality of the movements, based on which the social relationship among users, i.e. the meeting probabilities among the users, are predicted. Taken both efficiency and security into consideration, we design a network formation game based relay selection algorithm by defining the payoff functions of the users, designing the game evolving rules, and proving the stability of the formed network structure. Extensive simulation is conducted to validate the performance of the relay selection algorithm by using both synthetic trace and real-world trace. The results show that our algorithm outperforms other algorithms by trading a balance between efficiency and security.