Hi,
- Does BATMAN provide any method of *authenticating* nodes?
As I've said earlier, sometimes transferred data will be highly sensitive (for example: information of patients health in hospital), so it's absolutely critical to not allow leaking this information. I can imagine situation when some fake nodes claim "Hey, I'm the server collecting this data"... I think this is also important when someone would try to destroy our mesh network by placing some fake nodes in it. 2. If point nr one isn't possible, maybe there is some other way to ensure security? I don't know too much about security or cryptography, but I can think of solutions such as openVPN or IPsec.
I tend to agree with Andrew: If you wish to secure patient data transfers end- to-end encryption is probably what you are looking for (e.g. SSL). But "ensuring security" is a very broad term which we hear quite often. Please check our FAQ: http://www.open-mesh.org/wiki/FAQ
Cheers, Marek