A security query protocol of ONS in EPC system

Abstract

Object Naming Service (ONS) provides a connection between the middleware of Electronic Product Code (EPC) and EPC Information Services (EPCIS). The communication security of EPC network mainly depends on the queries of ONS. In the process of an ONS query, the local server sends DNS query messages in plaintext, which may result in the leakage of EPC information. In this paper, we propose a security query protocol for ONS which includes an extension protocol of DNS and a second generation onion routing protocol based on the certificateless public key cryptography (CL-PKC). In this protocol, multi-KGC center generates the part of private key for each user, users control the lengths of anonymous routing paths, and cross-domain users negotiate session keys. These features can not only meet the security needs of the ONS query process, but also improves system fault tolerance ability and anonymity. Moreover, the application of CL-PKC avoids the traditional complicated management of certificates, and then improves the efficiency of system.