Cryptographic Protocols for Component Identification and Applications

The main contribution of this work is to provide solutions for component identification in composite technical systems such as automobiles or airplanes. We focused on the following three goals: (1) piracy protection to identify original parts and detect bogus parts; (2) system protection to monitor a system in order to ensure system integrity; and (3) theft protection to prevent the usage of stolen components. There are applications in a variety of fields, such as automobile, aviation and telecommunication industry. For example, our work is able to ensure that cell phones only work with original batteries, or that air planes do not start when bogus parts are built in. Our solutions help to gain profit for manufacturers and ensure quality of products and services for consumers. We attempted to treat the problem of component identification comprehensively in this thesis. We hope that the thesis can serve as a reference to implement cryptographic protocols to achieve one or more of the above mentioned goals for all kinds of applications. After a motivation for component ID systems we develop a variety of solutions to meet the requirements of different systems. We consider protocols using different encryption schemes, such as symmetric and asymmetric encryption, as well as suited protocols for different kinds of network architecture, e.g., server-client and peer-to-peer networks. Furthermore, we introduce parameters to customize the solutions for individual needs.