Practical and robust self-keying scheme for personal area networks

Abstract

Providing key pre-distribution in personal area networks (PANs) remains a challenging problem, in particular because of the unique characteristics of and constraints on, such networks. Several key pre-distribution schemes have been proposed for use in PANs. but these schemes only support key management within a PAN. In a ubiquitous environment, however, users with multiple personal wireless devices are likely to form mobile ad hoc networks, requiring key management between PANs. Moreover, PANs cannot rely on the universal accessibility of an online TTP, and PAN users are unlikely to delegate security operations to an external trusted party for privacy reasons. We thus propose a provably secure self-organising key pre-distribution scheme for use both within and between PANs.