Flexible Authentication Technique for Ubiquitous Wireless Communication using Passport and Visa Tokens

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Flexible Authentication Technique for Ubiquitous Wireless Communication using Passport and Visa Tokens Abdullah M.Almuhaideb, Mohammed A. Alhabeeb, Phu D.Le, and Bala Srinivasan Abstract— The development of mobile devices (CPU, memory, and storage) and the introduction of mobile networks (Ad-Hoc, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and 3.5G) have opened new opportunities for next generation of mobile services. It becomes more convenience and desirable for mobile internet users to be connected everywhere. However, ubiquitous mobile access connectivity faces interoperation issues between wireless network providers and wireless network technologies. Although mobile users would like to get as many services as possible while they travel, there is a lack of technology to identify visited users in current foreign network authentication systems. This challenge lies in the fact that a foreign network provider does not initially have the authentication credentials of a mobile user. Existing approaches use roaming agreement to exchange authentication information between home network and foreign network. This paper proposes a roaming agreement-less approach designed based on our ubiquitous mobile access model. Our approach consist of two tokens, Passport (identification token) and Visa (authorisation token) to provide the mobile user with a flexible authentication method to access foreign network services. The security analysis indicates that our proposal is more suitable for ubiquitous mobile communication especially in roaming agreement-less environment. Index Terms— Authentication, Wireless communication, Protocol architecture, Mobile environments.
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—————————— 1 INTRODUCTION HE development of mobile devices has grown sig- nificantly over the last decade from a simple mobile phone to a pocket size-computing device with the capability to access the Internet via various wireless sys- tems such as Wi-Fi and 3.5G networks. The advanced capabilities of mobile devices allow mobile users (MUs) to pay for products, surf the internet, buy and sell stocks, transfer money and manage bank accounts on the move without being restricted to a specific location. This fact keeps attracting many MUs to be connected wirelessly. It is estimated that half the world’s population now pays to use mobile devices[1].
A MU always asks for a higher speed at lower prices, and demands to be “Always Best Connected” [2]. The MU also wants a ubiquitous wireless coverage to network resources from anywhere, anytime. Yet, it is hard to achieve both high data rate and wide coverage at once. For a smaller coverage, it is easier to provide higher data rates. For instance, a 3.5G networks have a wider cover- age but slower speeds; while Wi-Fi networks have higher speeds but smaller coverage. A key challenge in such het- erogeneous networks is the possibility of roaming to ad- ministrative domains with which a MU’s home domain does not have a pre-established roaming agreement [3]. Therefore ubiquitous wireless network coverage with high data rates is not feasible with a single technology and a single wireless provider. A heterogeneous wireless network will be composed of wireless networks of multi- ple technologies operated by multiple network providers.
Most of the current mobile devices are built with mul- tiple wireless interfaces. They have built-in chipsets for IEEE 802.11 based Wireless LAN (WLAN) and interfaces for data connectivity using cellular networks. Nowadays, university campuses and company offices are supported by WLAN allowing their students or employees to have free access to the wireless networks. Hotspot operators offer wireless Internet in public places like cafés, restau- rants, hotels and airports. A Wi-Fi community called FON has more than 250,000 hotspots worldwide [4], operated by individuals sharing their home Wi-Fi connection with other FON community members. An increasing number of wireless technologies and growing number of wireless providers of different sizes have in fact built a heteroge- neous wireless network towards a worldwide coverage.
Problem Statement. This growing number of wireless technologies and providers, as well as users’ increasing need and desire to be connected and reached at all times, call for the development of ubiquitous wireless access. However, authenticating unknown users by foreign net- work (FN) providers is still a challenge.
Fig.1 shows that a MU cannot get network service from FN if there is no roaming agreement with the MU’s T ———————————————— • A.M Almuhaideb is with the Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
• M.A. Alhabeeb is with the Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne

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