A-MAKE: An Efficient, Anonymous and Accountable Authentication Framework for WMNs

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a framework, named as A-MAKE, which efficiently provides security, privacy, and accountability for communications in wireless mesh networks. More specifically, the framework provides an anonymous mutual authentication protocol whereby legitimate users can connect to network from anywhere without being identified or tracked. No single party (e.g., network operator) can violate the privacy of a user, which is provided in our framework in the strongest sense. Our framework utilizes group signatures, where the private key and the credentials of the users are generated through a secure three-party protocol. User accountability is implemented via user revocation protocol that can be executed by two semi-trusted authorities, one of which is the network operator. The assumptions about the trust level of the network operator are relaxed. Our framework makes use of much more efficient signature generation and verification algorithms in terms of computation complexity than their counterparts in literature,where signature size is comparable to the shortest signatures proposed for similar purposes so far.