Authentication for Pervasive Computing

Key management is fundamental to communications security, and for security in pervasive computing sound key management is particularly difficult. However, sound key management itself depends critically on sound authentication. In this paper we review current notions of entity authentication and discuss why we believe these notions are unsuitable for the pervasive domain. We then present our views on how notions of authentication should be revised to address the challenges of the pervasive domain, and some of the new research problems that will arise. We end with some brief thoughts on how our revised notions may be implemented and some of the problems that may be encountered.