2nd International ICST Workshop on Personalized Networks

Research Article

Securing inter-cluster communication in Personal Networks

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/MOBIQ.2007.4451053,
        author={Assed  Jehangir and  Sonia  M. Heemstra de Groot},
        title={Securing inter-cluster communication in Personal Networks},
        proceedings={2nd International ICST Workshop on Personalized Networks},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={PERNETS},
        year={2008},
        month={2},
        keywords={IPSec  KINK  Personal Network  SSL  VPN  inter-cluster communication},
        doi={10.1109/MOBIQ.2007.4451053}
    }
    
  • Assed Jehangir
    Sonia M. Heemstra de Groot
    Year: 2008
    Securing inter-cluster communication in Personal Networks
    PERNETS
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/MOBIQ.2007.4451053
Assed Jehangir1,*, Sonia M. Heemstra de Groot2,*
  • 1: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science University of Twente Enschede, The Netherlands
  • 2: Twente Institute for Wireless and Mobile Communication, and Delft University of Technology The Netherlands
*Contact email: jehangira@cs.utwente.nl, Sonia.Heemstra.de.Groot@ti-wmc.nl

Abstract

A Personal Network (PN) is a new type of an overlay network consisting of all personal devices belonging to a user, be they remote or local. Such continuous and seamless connectivity of all personal devices belonging to a user enables the development of new applications and improved services. A Personal Network is an intelligent and user-centric network that assists the user in an unobtrusive way. In this paper we investigate means of securing communication between geographically distributed Personal Network clusters. Clusters are ad-hoc networks of co-located personal devices. Using Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology enables the creation of secure tunnels between gateways of different clusters, making it possible to transfer all types of intra-cluster traffic securely, over the insecure public network. The ad-hoc nature of clusters when coupled with the mobile and resource constrained nature of many personal devices makes enforcing security a challenging task. We investigate the suitability of existing VPN technologies to secure inter-cluster communication. Our contribution is in identifying aspects of existing solutions that render them unsuitable in their current form for constrained personal devices. We propose a modified framework based on IPSec and KINK that better satisfies the requirements of personal devices by reducing the cost of security.