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The Project Developing Standards Modeling and Evaluations Exploring Security Publications Software Tools

Seamless and Secure Mobility

For related research topic, see Public Safety Communications Requirements and Standards
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The Project

 The growing availability and ubiquity of different types of access networks is driving an evolution towards a "network of networks" consisting of heterogeneous but interconnected core and access network technologies that enable users to be always "best connected" anytime, anywhere, without much thought to the background technology used for maintaining and securing connectivity.

However, before this vision is realized there are several technological barriers that must be overcome. The main challenges that proponents of seamless mobility, including equipment vendors, network operators, and end users, face today and for a number of years to come, include:
  1. The lack of interoperability between different types of vendor equipment and the unavailability of standard handover interfaces.
  2. The lack of advanced protocol measurement and modeling techniques to accurately assess the performance and security characteristics of these complex networks.
This project is concerned with identifying and solving these two key obstacles in order to fully realize the vision for secure and seamless mobility.
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Developing Standards for Seamless & Secure Mobility

 We work closely with several industry consortia such as the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

Current projects include:

NIST is currently contributing to several working groups within IEEE 802. More specifically, NIST staff is participating in the activities of IEEE 802.11 (WLAN), 802.15 (WPAN), 802.19 (coexistence), and 802.21 (handover and interoperability between heterogeneous networks). See contributions
NIST's goals are to assist in the performance evaluation and validation of protocols being considered for standardization and to expedite the development of standard specifications for seamless and secure mobility.
 
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Modeling and Evaluation of Protocols for Seamless Mobility

 This effort is aimed at developing analytical models and simulation tools in order to evaluate the performance of network protocols for seamless mobility. Our technical approach consists of defining usage scenarios, performance metrics, designing and validating radio propagation and protocol abstraction models, and conducting cross-layer network protocol analysis. Since cross-layer protocol interactions are key to achieving seamless and secure mobility, much attention will be devoted to developing effective measurement techniques for capturing and characterizing these interactions. Similarly, abstraction models for the radio propagation, PHY, MAC, IP, and TCP layers are designed in order to accelerate the development and evaluation of mobility protocols. These models are validated against laboratory experimentation and prototype implementations.

Screenshot of the simulation and visualization tool
Figure 1 - Screen shot of simulation and visualization tool


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Exploring Security Issues for Seamless Mobility

 In order to better understand the security implications posed by seamless mobility we use a two-step approach in order to (1) analyze different levels of security for each network technology and then, (2) draw correspondences between the security levels defined for each network technology.

There are several factors that affect the implementation of security components and how they are characterized and measured in different types of networks. For example, the limited battery life in low-rate wireless devices prevents the use of computationally intensive cryptographic algorithms that would provide a very high degree of protection. In addition, the choice of the MAC and transport protocols used can impact the level of security that can be achieved. Because of these and other factors, the level of security that a given data encryption scheme will provide depends on the network technologies over which it is implemented.
Our objective is to shed a light on the following key issues:
  1. Is it possible to keep a comparable level of protection during a handover event between two different network technologies?
  2. What are the additional encryption and authentication schemes that are needed in order to maintain it?
    A mobile node within an 802.16 network transfers to an 802.11 network when it comes in range
    Above: As a mobile node within an 802.16 network enters within range of an 802.11, it will seamlessly transfer to the 802.11 network while maintaining connectivity.


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    Publications
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    Software Tools

    A simulation platform based on NS-2 is being developed in order to leverage publicly available modules for several wireless and wired technologies. IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet), IEEE 802.11b (WLAN), IEEE 802.15.1 (Bluetooth), and UMTS have been developed for various previous releases of NS-2, but have not been integrated to run jointly in a single simulation environment. By integrating various modules into a single platform, we make it possible to simulate heterogeneous environments that incorporate a variety of access networking technologies.
    The Project Developing Standards Modeling and Evaluations Exploring Security Publications Software Tools
    Contact information for project: Nada Golmie (nada.golmie@nist.gov)
    Created: June 9, 2005
    Last modified: February 26, 2008 ANTD footer page
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