@INPROCEEDINGS{tacid, author={M. Radenkovic and A. Walker and L. Bai}, booktitle={2018 14th International Wireless Communications Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC)}, title={Towards Better Understanding the Challenges of Reliable and Trust-Aware Critical Communications in the Aftermath of Disaster}, year={2018}, volume={}, number={}, pages={648-653}, abstract={This paper seeks to better understand the highly multi-dimensional, multi-faceted challenges of meeting trust and reliability requirements in critical, disaster aftermath communication networks comprising heterogeneous groups of sensor equipped nodes. Through emulation of a UK based flooding event in the South of England we show the impact of selfish and malicious nodes on disaster communications when disparate, distributed, and disconnected nodes are carrying sensitive messages relating to resource availability and need. To further support the need for trust-aware schemes in such environments we compare benchmark DTN protocols against our reliable, trust-aware framework, TACID, which penalises and excludes malicious nodes. We show that in disaster aftermath networks trust-aware schemes can significantly reduce the impact of malicious intermediary nodes and increase overall reliability whilst simultaneously maintaining message confidentiality.}, keywords={delay tolerant networks;disasters;protocols;radiocommunication;telecommunication network reliability;telecommunication security;trust-aware critical communications;disaster aftermath communication networks;heterogeneous groups;flooding event;malicious nodes;disaster communications;trust-aware framework;disaster aftermath networks trust-aware schemes;malicious intermediary nodes;Peer-to-peer computing;Reliability;Routing;Collaboration;Emergency services;Computer network reliability;Real-time systems;sensor networks;heterogeneous opportunistic networks;disaster communications;trust-aware security;reliability}, doi={10.1109/IWCMC.2018.8450430}, ISSN={2376-6506}, month={June},}