SECURE ACCESS MODULES FOR IDENTITY PROTECTION OVER THE EAP-TLS - Smartcard Benefits for User Anonymity in Wireless Infrastructures

Abstract

Identity protection and privacy became increasingly important in network communications; especially in wireless LAN. In this optic, Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PET) have been introduced to provide anonymous exchange and to protect personal data. In this paper, we present the SAM (Secure Access Module) architecture, which is a couple of smartcards (client and server) that process EAP-TLS, a transparent transport of TLS (Transport Layer Security) over EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol). This architecture provides mutual authentication, identity protection and data un-traceability by preventing undesired and unnecessary processing of personal data.