Demo overview

Abstract

Self-certifying names provide the property that any entity in a distributed system can verify the binding between a corresponding public key and the self-certifying name without relying on a trusted third party. However, self-certifying names lack a binding with a corresponding real-world identity. In this demonstration, we present the implementation of a concrete mechanism for using a Web-of-Trust in conjunction with self-certifying names to provide this missing binding. Our prototype runs on Android devices and demonstrates a decentralised message authentication scheme for any kind of content-oriented architecture. In the demonstration, we show how our proposed scheme performs-in terms of time needed to assess the trustworthiness of information retrieved-in a fully decentralised scenario: fragmented (mobile) networks. In such a scenario, connectivity to centralized authentication entities and Web-of-Trust key-servers is not available. Our scheme is hence executed solely on end-user terminals itself (which have limited processing capabilities).