Establishing trust in heterogeneous networks

Abstract

Many scenarios require confidential communication and protection against active attackers. The way to establish trust between devices and authenticate these networks depends completely on the scenario. In Body Area Networks human biometrics can serve as a shared secret among devices. In real-time voice communication, the ZRTP protocol allows for interactive trust establishment by recognizing the peer's voice. In asynchronous networks, such as email, other interactive mechanisms have been deployed, such as key fingerprint verification. In our research, we are analyzing the security and usability of existing trust mechanisms for heterogeneous networks. Furthermore, we are proposing protocol changes and new mechanisms to establish trust between devices. In this paper an overview is given over existing and upcoming research in this area. For synchronous networks, human biometrics, such as human gait or a peer's voice, are used as trust anchors. For asynchronous networks, the usability of interactive public-key verification mechanism are analyzed as trust anchors.