MPhil Thesis Defence


"Security Analysis of Public Key Certificate Issuance Protocols
over Internet and Wireless Networks"

By

Mr. Epsilon Kin-Fai Ip


Abstract

Since the early 1990s, public-key certificate issuance has involved
verifying users' identities and public keys over a separate---and
presumably secure---channel, such as in person or over the phone. However,
in some cases it is not practical to mandate users to obtain certificates
in person.  Hence a means to issue certificates over insecure
networks (e.g. Internet) is required. More recently, the market
expectation of mobile commerce raises the issue of certificate issuance
over wireless networks. The WAP Forum has defined a WAP PKI specification
and the registration protocol is also a certificate issuance protocol.

We describe the security concerns of protocols for public-key certificate
issuance. We motivate and describe the protocols that have appeared in
drafts of the SET specification and the WAP specification. In addition, we
define a methodology on the exact engineering analysis of such protocols,
based on the given cryptographic primitives such as public key encryption
and signature schemes, shared key encryption schemes, random number
generation and message authentication code schemes.


Date:			Thursday, 18 January 2001

Time:			3:00p.m.-5:00p.m.
	
Venue:			Lecture Theatre H
			(Chen Kuan Cheng Forum)
			Lifts 27-28

Chairman:		Dr. Sunil Arya

Committee Members:	Dr. Dit-Yan Yeung (Supervisor)
			Prof. Samuel Chanson
			Dr. Shing-Chi Cheung


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