From the Publisher:
A valuable reference for the novice as well as for the expert who needs a wider scope of coverage within the area of cryptography, this book provides easy and rapid access of information and includes more than 200 algorithms and protocols; more than 200 tables and figures; more than 1,000 numbered definitions, facts, examples, notes, and remarks; and over 1,250 significant references, including brief comments on each paper.

Handbook of Applied Cryptography

Distributed Sensor Networks (DSNs) are ad-hoc mobile networks that include sensor nodes with limited computation and communication capabilities. DSNs are dynamic in the sense that they allow addition and deletion of sensor nodes after deployment to grow the network or replace failing and unreliable nodes. DSNs may be deployed in hostile areas where communication is monitored and nodes are subject to capture and surreptitious use by an adversary. Hence DSNs require cryptographic protection of communications, sensor-capture detection, key revocation and sensor disabling. In this paper, we present a key-management scheme designed to satisfy both operational and security requirements of DSNs. The scheme includes selective distribution and revocation of keys to sensor nodes as well as node re-keying without substantial computation and communication capabilities. It relies on probabilistic key sharing among the nodes of a random graph and uses simple protocols for shared-key discovery and path-key establishment, and for key revocation, re-keying, and incremental addition of nodes. The security and network connectivity characteristics supported by the key-management scheme are discussed and simulation experiments presented.

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A key-management scheme for distributed sensor networks

Usually, a proof of a theorem contains more knowledge than the mere fact that the theorem is true. For instance, to prove that a graph is Hamiltonian it suffices to exhibit a Hamiltonian tour in it; however, this seems to contain more knowledge than the single bit Hamiltonian/non-Hamiltonian.In this paper a computational complexity theory of the “knowledge” contained in a proof is developed. Zero-knowledge proofs are defined as those proofs that convey no additional knowledge other than the correctness of the proposition in question. Examples of zero-knowledge proof systems are given for the languages of quadratic residuosity and 'quadratic nonresiduosity. These are the first examples of zero-knowledge proofs for languages not known to be efficiently recognizable.

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The knowledge complexity of interactive proof-systems

Security is important for many sensor network applications. A particularly harmful attack against sensor and ad hoc networks is known as the Sybil attack based on J.R. Douceur (2002), where a node illegitimately claims multiple identities. This paper systematically analyzes the threat posed by the Sybil attack to wireless sensor networks. We demonstrate that the attack can be exceedingly detrimental to many important functions of the sensor network such as routing, resource allocation, misbehavior detection, etc. We establish a classification of different types of the Sybil attack, which enables us to better understand the threats posed by each type, and better design countermeasures against each type. We then propose several novel techniques to defend against the Sybil attack, and analyze their effectiveness quantitatively.

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The Sybil attack in sensor networks: analysis & defenses

Pairwise key establishment is a fundamental security service in sensor networks; it enables sensor nodes to communicate securely with each other using cryptographic techniques. However, due to the resource constraints on sensors, it is infeasible to use traditional key management techniques such as public key cryptography and key distribution center (KDC). To facilitate the study of novel pairwise key predistribution techniques, this paper presents a general framework for establishing pairwise keys between sensors on the basis of a polynomial-based key predistribution protocol [2]. This paper then presents two efficient instantiations of the general framework: a random subset assignment key predistribution scheme and a grid-based key predistribution scheme. The analysis in this paper indicates that these two schemes have a number of nice properties, including high probability (or guarantee) to establish pairwise keys, tolerance of node captures, and low communication overhead. Finally, this paper presents a technique to reduce the computation at sensors required by these schemes.

Establishing pairwise keys in distributed sensor networks

Private-Key Hidden Vector Encryption with Key Privacy.

Over the last years, computation and networking have been increasingly embedded into the environment. This tendency has been often referred to as pervasive or ubiquitous computing, to remark the aim to a dense and widespread interaction among computing devices. User intervention and awareness are discarded, in opposition to an automatic adaptation of applications to location and context. To this aim, much attention is drawn to technologies supporting dynamicity and mobility over small devices which can follow the user anytime, anywhere. The Bluetooth standard particularly fits this idea, by providing a versatile and flexible wireless network technology with low power consumption. Operating in a license-free frequency, users are neither charged for accessing the network nor they need an account with any company. Bluetooth dynamically sets up and manages evolving networks, by providing the possibility of automatically discovering devices and services within its transmission range. Research studies have forecasted that within a few years, most of the devices accessing the Web will be mobile, and presumably most of them will be Bluetooth-enabled. Therefore, we need solutions that encompass networking, systems, and application issues involved in realizing mobile and ubiquitous access to services. In this paper, we present a lightweight solution to extend the possibility of accessing Web resources also from Bluetoothenabled mobile phones. All the implementation details will be hidden both to users and to application developers, allowing an easy and complete portability of applications working on traditional TCP/IP communication protocols towards the Bluetooth technology.

HTTP over Bluetooth: a J2ME experience

Constrained role mining aims to define a valid set of roles efficiently representing the organization of a company, easing the management of the security policies. Since the associated problems are NP hard, usually some heuristics are defined to find some sub-optimal solutions. In this paper we define two heuristics for the Permission Distribution and Role Usage Cardinality Constraints in the post processing framework, i.e. refining the roles produced by some other algorithm. We discuss the performance of the proposed heuristics applying them to some standard datasets showing the improvements w.r.t. previously available solutions.

PostProcessing in Constrained Role Mining

A key distribution scheme is a method used to distribute off-line initial private pieces of information among a set of users, such that each group of them can compute a common key for secure conference. This information is generated and distributed by a trusted server which is active only at the distribution phase. Key distribution is a central problem in cryptographic systems, and is a major component of the security subsystem of distributed systems, communication systems, and data networks. We consider the case in which users are allowed to interact after receiving the keys. >

Key distribution schemes

The current trend on the Internet suggests that the majority of revenues of web sites come from the advertising potential of the World Wide Web. Advertising is arguably the type of commercial information exchange of the greatest economic importance in the real world. Indeed, advertising is what funds most other forms of information exchange, including radio stations, television stations, cable networks, magazines, and newspapers. According to the figures provided by the Internet Advertising Bureau [24] and Price Waterhouse Coopers [43], advertising revenue results for the first 9 months of 2004 totaled slightly over 7.0 billion dollars.

Carlo Blundo

Papers

Private-Key Hidden Vector Encryption with Key Privacy.

HTTP over Bluetooth: a J2ME experience

PostProcessing in Constrained Role Mining

Key distribution schemes

Secure metering schemes