Identity-Based Encryption for Short Message Service

Description

Mobile phone text messaging, also known as Short Message Service (SMS), is one of the most popular means of communications in our daily life. These short email-like messages are discreet, direct, instantaneous and also of low cost. However, SMS messages have literally no security protection. They can easily be eavesdropped, intercepted or modified. Current solutions against these attacks are mainly based on symmetric key encryption, which requires the sender and the receiver to pre-share a secret key. The solutions are not scalable. They also downgrade the usability of SMS. In this project, the researchers will develop a secure SMS system based on the Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) technology. Their system will completely remove the key exchange phase and the communicating parties do not need to pre-share any secret information before transferring any encrypted SMS messages. Furthermore, the system will be highly efficient and require low power consumption on mobile devices.