National Lab Pitches Simple, Ad Hoc Security for Wireless Data Devices
A national lab with a way for mobile user groups to set up secure communications on the fly will pitch it tomorrow (Thurs.) to those who might want to license the technology or finance a business to commercialize it. The patent-pending method -- known as robust cryptography for virtual collaborative environments -- is suitable for emergency rescue, military and police operations. It also could be developed for use in Wi-Fi products and other wireless communication devices, said the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
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The technology lets newly formed groups immediately start exchanging messages protected cryptographically, the lab said. There’s no need for fixed and centralized servers, and members can join and leave the group as they wish, the lab said. It called the method “easily deployable, flexible [and] provably secure against dictionary attacks,” and suitable for use in peer-to-peer and grid computing and mesh network such as wireless LANs and personal area networks (PANs).
The method’s main advantage over Public Key Infrastructure technology is that it works with short passwords that are easily memorized, instead of requiring users to carry devices embedding their long symmetric keys, or to import keys into computers that may be insecure. “A virtual group is created when the peer collaborators establish a secure communication session among themselves by computing a master key via a group key-exchange bootstrapped from a 4 digit password,” the lab said. “The master key is then used as a means to encrypt sensitive messages between collaborators.” The technology was developed by the lab’s Olivier Chevassut and fellow Frenchmen David Pointcheval and Emmanuel Bresson.
The cryptographic method will be featured at an IT & Communications Technology Showcase in Santa Clara, Cal. The lab, run by the U. of Cal. for the U.S. Energy Dept., also will highlight a secure network tap device and software. Since conventional network-monitoring taps are always on, they are too easily converted into spigots of breached data -- notably by insiders reattaching cables to turn their laptops into receptacles of sensitive information until an onlooker notes something amiss in the monitoring, Michael Bennett, senior network engineer at the lab, said Tues. Bennett cited VoIP conversations as an important category traffic vulnerable to hijack. The technology Bennett and colleague Gregory Bell developed, also patent pending, requires a log-in for tapping, creates an audit trail, leaves the information flow to the tap turned off unless properly activated and encrypts log files and allows encryption of tapped traffic.
U. of Miami researchers are set to present an algorithm they say improves channel utilization when 802.11 wireless nodes operate in the saturation mode. This addresses study results showing channel utilization decreases as nodes in a carrier sensing zone increase. The researchers’ “backoff-state assignment algorithm” is easy to use, doesn’t boost communication overhead and interoperates with original versions of the IEEE 802.11 MACs (Media Access Controls), they said.