Motivation
Recently
many
people
in
the
media,
industry,
and
academia
are
talking
about
ubiquitous
computing
and
ad
hoc
networking,
but
it
seems
that
everybody
has
a
different
understanding
of
the
topic.
Some
people
associate
ad
hoc
networks
with
Personal
Area
Networks
(PANs),
as
for
instance
wireless
communications
among
PDA's,
cellular
phones,
and
laptops
using
the
Bluetooth
protocol,
whereas
others
might
imagine
military
applications,
such
as
exploring
enemy
territory
by
the
use
of
sensor
networks.
The
number
of
applications
are
countless.
So
what
are
ad
hoc
networks?
What
is
their
infrastructure?
What
are
their
properties?
What
are
the
applications
of
such
networks
and
do
those
applications
require
the
implementation
of
any
security?
All
these
questions
have
not
been
sufficiently
answered
yet.
Clear
definitions
of
architecture,
properties,
and
security
requirements
can
still
not
be
found
in
the
literature.
Although
some
applications
are
already
implemented,
the
desired
security
properties
have
still
not
been
completely
achieved.
Introduction
With the increasing number of applications that involve wireless communication among mobile devices, the demand for implementing security in such systems becomes inevitable. Networks that consists of mobile devices that spontaneously form a wireless network are usually referred to as ad hoc networks.
We believe that there are four main security problems that need to be dealt with in ad hoc networks:
- the authentication of devices that wish to talk to each other
- the secure establishment of a session key among the authenticated devices
- the secure routing in multi-hop networks
- the secure storage of key data in the devices
The primary focus of our research is on authentication and key establishment protocols that are applicable in ad hoc networks. The constrained devices, the lack of infrastructure, and other special properties of ad hoc networks make achieving those security properties a challenging task.