Secure naming in information-centric networks

In this paper, we present a secure naming system to locate resources in information-centric networks. The main goal is to allow secure content retrieval from multiple unknown or untrusted sources. The proposal uses a new, flexible naming scheme that is backwards compatible with the current URL naming scheme and allows for independent content identification regardless of the routing, forwarding, and storage mechanisms by separating the source and location identification rules in the URI/URL authority fields. Some benefits of the new naming system include the opportunity to securely retrieve content from any source in the network, content mobility, content validation with the original source, and full backwards compatibility with the current naming system.