Touchstone of Trust: Physical Contact in Ad-Hoc Wireless Network

Due to the distinct application conditions and environment, ad-hoc wireless network presents particular requirements on security establishment. Traditional solutions and frameworks for trust building and authentication do not fit anymore, because of either lack of some key elements or the new constraints imposed. This paper examines the differences of ad-hoc wireless network, extracts the problems during the initial setup of a security association and provides a method called Physical Contact to guarantee the reliable first connect between two devices for subsequent secure communication. A collection of existing models and designs serve as the basis and are introduced to explain the concepts and ideas. A new proposal is given at the end of the paper.