SWORD: A Secure LoW-Latency Offline-First Authentication and Data Sharing Scheme for Resource Constrained Distributed Networks

2026-01-19

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of achieving low-latency, secure authentication and data sharing in resource-constrained distributed networks—such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Vehicles (IoV)—where centralized or blockchain-based solutions struggle under weak or offline connectivity. To overcome this limitation, the authors propose SWORD, an offline-first authentication and data-sharing mechanism that innovatively integrates proximity-based clustering, lightweight cryptography, and distributed trust, eliminating the need for a central server or high-overhead consensus protocols. Experimental results demonstrate that SWORD achieves authentication latency and resource efficiency comparable to centralized approaches while significantly outperforming conventional blockchain methods, and it effectively mitigates spoofing, replay, and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Internet of Things, Sensor Networks & Smart Cities
• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Federated Web and WoT systems, including distributed, federated and edge-based data processing
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data provenance, reliability, and authenticity

Abstract

While many resource-constrained networks, such as Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Vehicles (IoV), are inherently distributed, the majority still rely on central servers for fast authentication and data sharing. Blockchain-based solutions offer decentralized alternatives but often struggle to meet the stringent latency requirements of real-time applications. Even with the rollout of 5G, network latency between servers and peers remains a significant challenge. To address this, we introduce SWORD, a novel offline-first authentication and data-sharing scheme designed specifically for resource-constrained networks. SWORD utilizes a proximity-based clustering approach to enable offline authentication and data sharing, ensuring low-latency, secure operations even in intermittently connected scenarios. Our experimental results show that SWORD outperforms traditional blockchain-based solutions while offering similar resource efficiency and authentication latency to central-server-based solutions. Additionally, we provide a comprehensive security analysis, demonstrating that SWORD is resilient against spoofing, impersonation, replay, and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Problem

• authentication
• data sharing
• low-latency
• resource-constrained networks
• offline-first

Innovation

• offline-first
• proximity-based clustering
• low-latency authentication
• resource-constrained networks
• decentralized security