Personal PKI for the Smart Device Era

Abstract

Abstract. As people use an increasing number of smart devices for their everyday computing, it is surprising that these powerful, internet-enabled devices are rarely connected together to create personal networks. The webinos project is an attempt to make this possible so that resources can easily be shared between devices, regardless of the operating system or network they are using. However, increased connectivity raises a number of security and privacy issues, and in this paper we introduce a public key infrastructure designed to be suitable for personal computing across multiple devices. We recognize the need for our PKI to work on both mobile and home networks, use existing online user identities and take into consideration the different interaction styles found on smart devices in different form factors. We propose a set of principles for personal key infrastructures, describe our implementation and outline how it mitigates common threats and issues.

Extending the web to support personal network services

“…This can be provided at a lower layer, as in webinos [11], or through standard web approaches. For example, if Alice were accessing Bob's services over HTTP, Bob's service could indicate that Alice must first visit http://service.pc.bob.…”

Characteristic-based security analysis of personal networks

“…The capabilities that could vary between devices include computational architecture and processing speed, data storage technology and capacity, communications capabilities, mobility, software and UI capabilities. Shared Components [10] [7]: Since the PN is a user-centric construct, an individual's PN could include devices and/or communication infrastructure that are shared between multiple users. For example, smart home appliances could be shared between the residents or multiple applications could use the same cloud-based service.…”

“…Absence of geographical locality [10][11] [7]: Since the PN is not defined in terms of geographical locality, it must always be assumed that PN components might be in different areas. Although this does not affect the connectivity between devices, it means that this connectivity could be provided by third party networks.…”

“…In this analysis we use the definition from Lyle et al [7] and expand it to include cloud-based services. We refer to the devices and systems as PN components.…”

“…An alternative approach is to consider the Personal Network (PN) which Lyle et al define as "a set of communicating devices belonging to and/or used by a particular individual" [7]. Niemegeers and De Groot envision the PN as a dynamic extension of the PAN to encompass the user's home network as well as other networks such as VANs [10] [11].…”