Distributed Temporary Pseudonyms: A New Approach for Protecting Location Information in Mobile Communication Networks

One of the major security aspects in mobile communication networks concerns information about the localization of the (mobile) network user. This information may be protected by establishing a trusted third party that is responsible for creating suitable pseudonyms for the user identity. Distributing the maintenance of pseudonyms among n independent trusted parties allows to increase further the security of location information. In this paper, a method is proposed that guarantees security as long as at least one of the n parties may definitely be trusted whereas the other parties may turn out to be corrupt. The pseudonym collision probability is derived analytically before a detailed OPNET simulation evaluates the cost of the new approach compared to standard GSM.