Enabling Real-Time Wireless Channel Based Encryption Key Generation

 

Presenter

Brandon Z. Katz

 

Advisor

Dr. Kapil Dandekar

 

Abstract

As the demand for wireless communication grows, so does the need for wireless security. Through both high profile attacks as well as personal identity theft at open access points, it has been demonstrated that security is falling behind the curve. Wireless consumers create weak passwords, forget to turn on the latest encryption, and connect to open wireless networks every day. One solution is to remove the human element and instead generate encryption keys on the fly. Recently, methods have been proposed to use wireless channels as common entropy sources to enable radios to generate symmetric encryption keys. These techniques rely on the unique wireless environment between two radios in order to effectively move security down to the physical layer of a radio network as opposed to requiring users to handle encryption keys directly. In this thesis, a method of generating keys using wireless channels in real-time through additions to the IEEE 802.11 protocol is described and validated. As part of the process, a technique for sampling wireless channels using application layer traffic is designed and tested. Additionally, major related points of interest such as channel coherence, bit error handling, and real-time processing, are discussed.