51,852 research outputs found
Using quantum key distribution for cryptographic purposes: a survey
The appealing feature of quantum key distribution (QKD), from a cryptographic
viewpoint, is the ability to prove the information-theoretic security (ITS) of
the established keys. As a key establishment primitive, QKD however does not
provide a standalone security service in its own: the secret keys established
by QKD are in general then used by a subsequent cryptographic applications for
which the requirements, the context of use and the security properties can
vary. It is therefore important, in the perspective of integrating QKD in
security infrastructures, to analyze how QKD can be combined with other
cryptographic primitives. The purpose of this survey article, which is mostly
centered on European research results, is to contribute to such an analysis. We
first review and compare the properties of the existing key establishment
techniques, QKD being one of them. We then study more specifically two generic
scenarios related to the practical use of QKD in cryptographic infrastructures:
1) using QKD as a key renewal technique for a symmetric cipher over a
point-to-point link; 2) using QKD in a network containing many users with the
objective of offering any-to-any key establishment service. We discuss the
constraints as well as the potential interest of using QKD in these contexts.
We finally give an overview of challenges relative to the development of QKD
technology that also constitute potential avenues for cryptographic research.Comment: Revised version of the SECOQC White Paper. Published in the special
issue on QKD of TCS, Theoretical Computer Science (2014), pp. 62-8
Efficient security for IPv6 multihoming
In this note, we propose a security mechanism for protecting IPv6
networks from possible abuses caused by the malicious usage of a
multihoming protocol. In the presented approach, each
multihomed node is assigned multiple prefixes from its upstream
providers, and it creates the interface identifier part of its
addresses by incorporating a cryptographic one-way hash of the
available prefix set. The result is that the addresses of each
multihomed node form an unalterable set of intrinsically bound
IPv6 addresses. This allows any node that is communicating with
the multihomed node to securely verify that all the alternative
addresses proposed through the multihoming protocol are
associated to the address used for establishing the communication.
The verification process is extremely efficient because it only
involves hash operationsPublicad
Computational and Energy Costs of Cryptographic Algorithms on Handheld Devices
Networks are evolving toward a ubiquitous model in which heterogeneous
devices are interconnected. Cryptographic algorithms are required for developing security
solutions that protect network activity. However, the computational and energy limitations
of network devices jeopardize the actual implementation of such mechanisms. In this
paper, we perform a wide analysis on the expenses of launching symmetric and asymmetric
cryptographic algorithms, hash chain functions, elliptic curves cryptography and pairing
based cryptography on personal agendas, and compare them with the costs of basic operating
system functions. Results show that although cryptographic power costs are high and such
operations shall be restricted in time, they are not the main limiting factor of the autonomy
of a device
Percolation in the Secrecy Graph
The secrecy graph is a random geometric graph which is intended to model the
connectivity of wireless networks under secrecy constraints. Directed edges in
the graph are present whenever a node can talk to another node securely in the
presence of eavesdroppers, which, in the model, is determined solely by the
locations of the nodes and eavesdroppers. In the case of infinite networks, a
critical parameter is the maximum density of eavesdroppers that can be
accommodated while still guaranteeing an infinite component in the network,
i.e., the percolation threshold. We focus on the case where the locations of
the nodes and eavesdroppers are given by Poisson point processes, and present
bounds for different types of percolation, including in-, out- and undirected
percolation.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figure
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