TECHNIQUES FOR PRIVACY AND AUTHENTICATION IN PERSONAL COMMUNICATION-SYSTEMS

Personal Communication Systems (PCS) are anticipated to bring ubiquitous wireless telephony into widespread public use. To help further this goal, system designers are pursuing solutions to a number of challenges. These include accommodations for terminal (handset) mobility, personal mobility, universal roaming, access control, and the protection of user information sent via the airwaves. Of these, the latter two are often considered as a single subsystem called “Privacy and Authentication" (P&A). A well-designed P&A technique is necessary to protect assets. Network assets are protected by the access control (authentication) portion which enables legitimate users to utilize network services for which they have sub-scribed, while denying service to “hackers" who would steal services and monopolize resources. Subscriber assets (e.g., confidential information) are protected by encryption of traffic (privacy) on the radio link. © 1995 IEEE