Fraud Prevention and User Privacy in Mobile Computing (extended summary)

Recent years have seen an explosive interest in wireless (information) networks that support the mobility of subscribers (and/or terminals). These networks serve as a foundation of future universal, mobile and ubiquitous personal communications systems. Emerging wireless networks share many common characteristics with traditional wire-line networks such as public switched telephone/data networks, and hence many security issues with wire-line networks also apply to the wireless environment. Nevertheless, the mobility of subscribers, the transmission of signals through open-air and the requirement of low power consumption by a mobile equipment give a wireless network a large number of features distinctively different from those seen in a wire-line network. Especially, security and privacy becomes more eminent with wireless networks. For this reason, in this paper we will be primarily concerned with security issues related to or caused by the mobility of subscribers/terminals, open-air transmission of signals and low power supply of a mobile equipment. When examining the security in a wireless network, a large number of issues have to be considered. Some of the issues are addressed in the following.