Marc Danzeisen

Secure mobile IP communication

This paper describes a solution called secure mobile IP (SecMIP) to provide mobile IP users secure access to their companys firewall protected virtual private network. The solution requires neither the introduction of new protocols nor the insertion or modification of network components. It only requires a slight adaptation of the end system communication software in order to adapt the mobile IP and IP security protocol implementations to each other. The paper describes the concept, prototype implementation, and initial performance measurement results.

Implementation of a cellular framework for spontaneous network establishment

Wireless communication technologies enabled the possibility of building spontaneous networks between two or more users to exchange data. The problem in the establishment of such networks lies in the configuration that has to be agreed on and in the way the communicating parties can be identified. In prior publications we have presented our vision of convenient networking in a heterogeneous environment. In this paper, we describe an implementation that offers a dashboard-like tool, which can, with the help of a cellular network, ease the formation of spontaneous networks among heterogeneous nodes. Furthermore, the provided implementation is able to secure the acquired communication links in the spontaneous network and therefore protect the exchanged information against possible abuse.

HETEROGENEOUS NETWORK ESTABLISHMENT ASSISTED BY CELLULAR OPERATORS

In this paper, we describe a novel architecture to enable a secure communication among mobile devices using different wireless technologies like wireless LAN, Bluetooth, cellular systems or even infrared. Making use of the combination of these technologies for the data transmission and for the signaling of the communication, we analyze several scenarios with increasing complexity. The complete picture appears in the last scenario where all technologies are involved and the network is composed of heterogeneous mobile nodes. The paper also presents a solution for the setup of a secured communication channel (i.e. a Virtual Private Network connection) between several heterogeneous mobile nodes controlled by the cellular network operator. The mobile nodes can be either cellular aware or non-cellular aware in this framework. We propose to setup the heterogeneous network communications via the cellular network using the cellular aware nodes.

Heterogeneous communications enabled by cellular operators

How can secure data communication between two users not knowing each other be achieved? In this paper we show that it is possible to perform such a secured communication using a user friendly setup with help of a cellular network. The main contribution of this paper is to present a secure connection between two users on whatever technology (wireless LAN, Bluetooth, etc) with an easy installation and setup reusing a cellular network. We describe a novel architecture to enable user friendly establishment of a secure communication among mobile devices to share data using different wireless technologies like wireless LAN, Bluetooth, cellular systems or even infrared. Making use of these technology combinations for data transmission and using the cellular network for signaling, we analyze several scenarios with increasing complexity. The complete picture appears in the last scenario where several heterogeneous technologies are involved and the network is composed of heterogeneous mobile nodes. The novelty of our concept is mainly the usage of wireless WAN networks to authenticate users and exchange keys to secure the heterogeneous links between the mobile nodes

On the potential of heterogeneous networks

Many research work is going on in the domain of pure ad-hoc networking and even more issues are raised due to the missing central infrastructure to properly manage resources, guarantee fairness, and provide security features. On the other hand lot of research effort is spent to increase the performance of infrastructure-based access networks to cope with the steadily increasing demand for broadband data. When making a step back, the most promising evolution of heterogeneous networking is the integration of both paradigms. Taking advantage of the well controlled cellular environment and the high capacity of ad-hoc and direct node-to-node communication. The resulting hybrid networks are incorporating the best of both worlds. The concept of Cellular Assisted Heterogeneous Networking (CAHN) provides a framework to offer convenient and secure management of heterogeneous end-to-end sessions between nodes. The introduced separation of the signaling and the data plane allows to switch on power demanding broadband interfaces like GPRS, UMTS, or even WLAN only, if actually required, i.e., data has to be sent or received. The proposed out-of-band signaling enables furthermore the integration of ad-hoc links to offer best performance whenever nodes are within vicinity. Extensive simulations show that both, the integration of ad-hoc links and the selective activation of high power broadband interfaces, can significantly increase the performance of heterogeneous networks.

On the benefits of heterogeneous networking and how cellular mobile operators can help

Many research efforts in the domain of spontaneous networking are aiming at providing means to enable devices to communicate with little or no knowledge of its users about the underlying technology and its configuration. The establishment of communication channels should happen in an ad-hoc and convenient manner for the user. It should also be possible to connect at any place, at any time, with anyone using always the most appropriate radio system available. Unfortunately, the different communication technologies require often different settings and therefore a certain level of knowledge is needed to successfully connect them. This is especially true for direct node to node communication technologies like WLAN, where no centralized system is present to manage the communication setup. Several parameters have to be set before a communication can occur. When talking about secure communication the procedure gets even more complicated due to the additional key negotiation and management. Furthermore, depending on the movement of the nodes, the application that is used, the initially chosen communication technology might become suboptimal or even useless. Hence, a seamless handover to another technology would be necessary to allow to maintain the session. The first part of this paper mainly focuses on the benefit of session handovers between infrastructure based communication technologies and direct node to node communication. An implementation architecture for such a heterogeneous session management is proposed in the second part.

Simulations on heterogeneous networking with CAHN

Nowadays heterogeneity of communication technologies would allow nodes to be optimally connected nearly anytime and anywhere. Unfortunately, the different technologies are not designed for seamless interworking. The heterogeneity is often perceived as a hurdle instead of an enabler for being always best connected. The dynamic selection and configuration of the most appropriate technology is by far too complex for the end user, especially when considering ad-hoc connections. The concept of Cellular Assisted Heterogeneous Networking (CAHN) provides a framework to offer convenient and secure management of heterogeneous end-to-end sessions between nodes. Furthermore, the proposed out-of-band signaling enables the seamless integration of ad-hoc links to offer best performance whenever nodes are within vicinity. The introduced separation of the signaling and the data plane allows to switch on power demanding broadband interfaces like GPRS, UMTS, or even WLAN only if actually required, i.e., data has to be sent or received). In this paper we present the potential benefits resulting from these two features enabled by CAHN. Extensive simulations show that both, the integration of ad-hoc links and the selective activation of high power broadband interfaces, can significantly increase the efficiency of heterogeneous sessions in terms of throughput and energy consumption.