This article presents an efficient public-key protocol for mutual authentication and key exchange designed for third generation mobile communications systems. The paper also demonstrates how a micropayment scheme can be integrated into the authentication protocol; this payment protocol allows for the provision of incontestable charging. The problem of establishing authenticated public keys through crosscertification is addressed.

Masquerading and eavesdropping are major threats to the security of wireless communications. To provide proper protection for the communication of the wireless link, contents of the communication should be enciphered and mutual authentication should be conducted between the subscriber and the serving network. Several protocols have been proposed by standards bodies and independent researchers in recent years to counteract these threats. However, the strength of these protocols is usually weakened in the roaming environment where the security breach of a visited network could lead to persistent damages to subscribers who visit. The subscriber's identity is not well protected in most protocols, and appropriate mechanisms solving disputes on roaming bills are not supported either. To solve these problems, new authentication protocols are proposed in this paper with new security features that have not been fully explored before. I. INTRODUCTION In personal communication systems, open acc...

In this paper, we propose a scheme for providing anonymous channel service in wireless communications. By this service, many interesting applications, such as electronic elections, anonymous group discussions, with user identification confidential can be easily realized. No one can trace a sender's identification and no one but the authority centre can distinguish an anonymous message from a normal message when a user uses the anonymous channel. The user anonymity in our scheme is neither based on any trusted authority nor on the cooperation of all potential senders. Our scheme can be easily applied to existing wireless systems, such as GSM and CDPD, without changing their underlying structures. # 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Anonymous channel; Authentication; Untraceable e-mail systems; Electronic elections; Anonymous group discussions; Privacy and security 1. Introduction Many applications, such as electronic voting schemes [1-- 3], anonymous group dis...

This paper examines authentication protocols used for wireless communications, especially in the multi-operator environment, to see what security services they provide and how they do it. Weaknesses of each protocol and differences among them will also be discussed. 1. INTRODUCTION As technology advances from analogue systems to digital systems, personal communication systems (PCSs) will soon provide broadband services in addition to the traditional voice and data communications. However, whether designed for cellular phones, cordless phones, or other user devices, security of the wireless link is still the major concern of the PCSs. Wireless communication suffers from threats [10, 19] inherited from wired networks and those [13, 16, 17] which are specific in the wireless environment. For the lack of a physical association between the subscriber and the wired network and easy access to the radio, proper authentication is necessary to protect the communication against illegal usage. Su...