Authentication on the edge: distributed authentication for a global open wi-fi network

  • Authors:

  • Nathanael A. Thompson;Zuoning Yin;Haiyun Luo;Petros Zerfos;Jatinder Pal Singh

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL;University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL;University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL;Deutsche Telekom AG Laboratories, Berlin, Germany;Deutsche Telekom AG Laboratories, Berlin, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 13th annual ACM international conference on Mobile computing and networking
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

A global-scale low cost outdoor Internet access infrastructure is finally attainable. Emerging projects are leveraging the proliferation of private Wi-Fi networks to build a global-scale ubiquitous access infrastructure from autonomous, independently owned Internet connections at homes and other private properties. To ensure the trace ability and accountability required by the broadband ISPs and private owners of these Wi-Fi networks, reliable authentication and authorization are needed. This paper describes authentication on the edge, a localized and distributed authentication method for open Wi-Fi networks. Three main ideas are used to adapt to the variability and unreliability of these networks: the use of certificate-based authentication, the distribution of a segmented certificate revocation list to all entities and the self organization of access points into a social lookup network. These methods achieve the scalability needed for the overwhelming size and volume of a global network and increase resiliency against temporary failures in the infrastructure.