International Journal of Network Security, Vol.18, No.1, PP.193-200, Jan. 2016 193
Anonymous Network Information Acquirement
Protocol for Mobile Users in Heterogeneous
Wireless Networks
Guangsong Li
1
, Qi Jiang
2
, Yanan Shi
1
, and Fushan Wei
1
(Corresponding author: Guangsong Li)
State Key Laboratory of Mathematical Engineering and Advanced Computing
1
No. 62 of Science Road, Zhengzhou 450002, P. R. China
School of Computer Science and Technology, Xidian University
2
No. 2 of Taibai Road, Xi’an 710071, P. R. China
(Email: lgsok@163.com)
(Received Dec. 10, 2013; revised and accepted Nov. 15 & Dec. 28, 2014)
Abstract
Media independent information service is one of the im-
portant parts of the IEEE 802.21 standard to optimize
vertical handover in wireless heterogeneous networks. In
this paper, an anonymous network information acquire-
ment protocol is proposed for a mobile user, which can
be used to establish a secure channel between the mo-
bile user and the information server. Security and perfor-
mance analysis shows that the proposed protocol is very
suitable for mobile environments.
Keywords: Anonymity, heterogeneous network, media in-
dependent information service
1 Introduction
Communication in next generation wireless networks will
use multiple access technologies, creating a heterogeneous
network environment. Practically, a single network can-
not cater for all different user needs or provide all services.
Nowadays the availability of multimode mobile devices
capable of connecting to different wireless technologies
provides users with the possibility to switch their net-
work interfaces to different types of networks. Vertical
handovers among heterogeneous networks should be sup-
ported to guarantee the service continuity. To achieve a
seamless handover, a mobile user needs to obtain infor-
mation of existing networks nearby, in order that he can
choose a suitable target network and do some prepara-
tions for possible handover. However, the neighbor infor-
mation discovery is the most time-consuming phase in the
handover process [15].
The IEEE 802.21 working group defines the Media In-
dependent Handover (MIH) services [4] to facilitate han-
dover between heterogeneous networks. Media Indepen-
dent Information Service (MIIS) is a very important part
of MIH services, which specifies information about nearby
networks and the query/response mechanism that allows
mobile nodes to get that information from information
servers. MIH messages will be exchanged over various
wireless media between mobile nodes and access networks
in future heterogeneous networks. Thus the MIH services
may be a new target to attackers, which will be the main
concerns for equipment vendors and service providers.
Some typical threats about MIIS are listed in [9], which in-
cludes identity spoofing, tampering, replay attack, denial
of service and information disclosure. Note that an at-
tacker may be able to trace a user’s movements or predict
future movements by inspecting MIIS messages. Thus, it
is desirable to hide the roaming user’s identity and move-
ments from eavesdroppers. However, security mechanisms
are not within the scope of the IEEE 802.21 standard.
IEEE 802.21a task group was set up to address se-
curity issues of MIH services. As to MIH security, two
frameworks about MIH service access control were pro-
posed [5, 8]: (i) 3-party case, the access control is ap-
plied through EAP process (for instance, EAP-TLS [13])
with an EAP server, where the information server plays a
part of authenticator; (ii) 2-party case, the access control
is based on a pre-shared key or public key certification,
where the user and the information server execute a mu-
tual authentication and key establishment procedure like
TLS [2]. Saadat et al. [11] describe the main technical
requirements to establish a secure channel between the
user and the information server. They also propose that
the user should be authenticated by an authentication
server and a shared key between the user and the infor-
mation server should be generated by the authentication
server. However, the specific authentication method is
not referred. Saha et al. [12] propose a PLA-MIH scheme