2nd International ICST Workshop on Trusted Collaboration

Research Article

Two-Level Signature Delegation For Mobile First Responder Authentication

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/COLCOM.2007.4553803,
        author={Nidal Aboudagga and Mohamed Eltoweissy and Jean-Jacques Quisquater},
        title={Two-Level Signature Delegation For Mobile First Responder Authentication},
        proceedings={2nd International ICST Workshop on Trusted Collaboration},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={TRUSTCOL},
        year={2008},
        month={6},
        keywords={Authentication  Collaboration  Collaborative work  Communication system security  Disaster management  Impedance  Information security  Mobile communication  Performance analysis  Wireless networks},
        doi={10.1109/COLCOM.2007.4553803}
    }
    
  • Nidal Aboudagga
    Mohamed Eltoweissy
    Jean-Jacques Quisquater
    Year: 2008
    Two-Level Signature Delegation For Mobile First Responder Authentication
    TRUSTCOL
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/COLCOM.2007.4553803
Nidal Aboudagga1,*, Mohamed Eltoweissy2,*, Jean-Jacques Quisquater1,*
  • 1: UCL-Crypto group, Place du Levant 3, 1348 Louvain la Neuve, Belgium
  • 2: Advanced Research Institute, 4300 Wilson Blvd., Suite 750, Arlington, VA 22203, USA
*Contact email: aboudagg@dice.ucl.ac.be, toweissy@vt.edu, quisquater@dice.ucl.ac.be

Abstract

The deployment of wireless networks is in permanent growth. To exploit their intrinsic mobility advantages, collaborative networks such as first responder networks (FRNs) have recently adopted wireless networking technologies, albiet at a small scale. FRNs require the collaboration of heterogeneous and mobile groups. Impeding the wide-scale use of wireless networking in FRNs are the many security challenges like user authentication, information flow and wireless media management. In this paper, we propose a solution that enables authenticated communication among multiple FRNs which is especially needed during critical events such as intervention in disaster situations. Our solution uses a two-level hierarchical proxy signature to decentralize the authentication process across different administrative networks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first construction of two-level signature delegation applied to wireless environments. Security and performance analysis and comparison with other works demonstrate the viability and advantages of our solution.