Distributed Collaborative Key Agreement Protocols for Dynamic Peer Groups

We consider several distributed collaborative key agreement protocols for dynamic peer groups. This problem has several important characteristics which make it different from traditional secure group communication. They are (1) distributed nature in which there is no centralized key server, (2) collaborative nature in which the group key is contributive; i.e., each group member will collaboratively contribute its part to the global group key, and (3) dynamic nature in which existing members can leave the group while new members may join. Instead of performing individual rekey operations, i.e., recomputing the group key after every join or leave request, we consider an interval based approach of rekeying. In particular, we consider three distributed algorithms for updating the group key: (1) the Rebuild algorithm, (2) the Batch algorithm, and (3) the Queuebatch algorithm. We analyze the performance of these distributed algorithms under different settings, including different population...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: ICNP
• Authors: Patrick P. C. Lee, John C. S. Lui, David K. Y. Yau
• Keywords: Computer Networks, Distributed Algorithms, Dynamic Peer Group, Group Key, ICNP 2002