Chapter List

Part Overview

This first part is concerned with providing an understanding of the main technologies on which security for both current and future mobile systems will be built, and how these technologies will develop. Chapter 1, Cryptography for mobile security, provides a brief summary of the cryptographic background to the remainder of the book. Thischaptercanbeskippedbythosereadersalreadyfamiliarwithcryptographic concepts.

Until now, the cryptographic techniques employed for mobile telecommunications security have primarily been of symmetric or 'secret key' type. That is, the schemes employed rely on the use of pre-established shared secret keys. However, the situation is likely to change in the future heterogeneous computing and communications environment, where UMTS and GSM technologies will be just two amongst many communications techniques. In such environments, public key cryptography is likely to be of increasing importance. The use of public key cryptography requires the establishment of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and issues associated with the management and use of a PKI in a mobile environment are the focus of Chapter 2, PKI in mobile systems.

The theme of PKI is continued in Chapter 3, The personal PKI. This describes the notion of a PKI introduced specifically to support security within a Personal Area Network. Whilst managing a large multi-purpose PKI is a highly non-trivial activity, the...