Wide Mouth Frog protocol

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The Wide-Mouth Frog protocol [1] is a computer network authentication protocol designed for use on insecure networks (the Internet for example). It allows individuals communicating over a network to prove their identity to each other while also preventing eavesdropping or replay attacks, and provides for detection of modification and the prevention of unauthorized reading. This can be proven using BAN logic.

Computer network collection of autonomous computers interconnected by a single technology

A computer network is a digital telecommunications network which allows nodes to share resources. In computer networks, computing devices exchange data with each other using connections between nodes. These data links are established over cable media such as wires or optic cables, or wireless media such as Wi-Fi.

Authentication act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity

Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a single piece of data claimed true by an entity. In contrast with identification, which refers to the act of stating or otherwise indicating a claim purportedly attesting to a person or thing's identity, authentication is the process of actually confirming that identity. It might involve confirming the identity of a person by validating their identity documents, verifying the authenticity of a website with a digital certificate, determining the age of an artifact by carbon dating, or ensuring that a product is what its packaging and labeling claim to be. In other words, authentication often involves verifying the validity of at least one form of identification.

A security protocol is an abstract or concrete protocol that performs a security-related function and applies cryptographic methods, often as sequences of cryptographic primitives. A protocol describes how the algorithms should be used. A sufficiently detailed protocol includes details about data structures and representations, at which point it can be used to implement multiple, interoperable versions of a program.

The protocol was first described under the name "The Wide-mouthed-frog Protocol" in the paper "A Logic of Authentication" (1990), which introduced Burrows–Abadi–Needham logic, and in which it was an "unpublished protocol ... proposed by" coauthor Michael Burrows. [2] The paper gives no rationale for the protocol's whimsical name.

Burrows–Abadi–Needham logic is a set of rules for defining and analyzing information exchange protocols. Specifically, BAN logic helps its users determine whether exchanged information is trustworthy, secured against eavesdropping, or both. BAN logic starts with the assumption that all information exchanges happen on media vulnerable to tampering and public monitoring. This has evolved into the popular security mantra, "Don't trust the network."

Michael Burrows, FRS is a British computer scientist and the creator of the Burrows–Wheeler transform currently working for Google. Born in Britain, as of 2018 he lives in the United States, although he remains a British citizen.

The protocol can be specified as follows in security protocol notation: [1] [2] [3]

In cryptography, security (engineering) protocol notation, also known as protocol narrations and Alice & Bob notation, is a way of expressing a protocol of correspondence between entities of a dynamic system, such as a computer network. In the context of a formal model, it allows reasoning about the properties of such a system.

Timestamp sequence of characters or encoded information identifying when a certain event occurred

A timestamp is a sequence of characters or encoded information identifying when a certain event occurred, usually giving date and time of day, sometimes accurate to a small fraction of a second. The term derives from rubber stamps used in offices to stamp the current date, and sometimes time, in ink on paper documents, to record when the document was received. Common examples of this type of timestamp are a postmark on a letter or the "in" and "out" times on a time card.

A session key is a single-use symmetric key used for encrypting all messages in one communication session. A closely related term is content encryption key (CEK), traffic encryption key (TEK), or multicast key which refers to any key used to encrypt messages, as opposed to other uses, like encrypting other keys.

Note that to prevent active attacks, some form of authenticated encryption (or message authentication) must be used.

The protocol has several problems:

See also

Alice and Bob are fictional characters commonly used as placeholder names in cryptology, as well as science and engineering literature. The Alice and Bob characters were invented by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman in their 1978 paper "A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems." Subsequently, they have become common archetypes in many scientific and engineering fields, such as quantum cryptography, game theory and physics. As the use of Alice and Bob became more popular, additional characters were added, each with a particular meaning. These characters do not have to refer to humans; they refer to generic agents which might be different computers or even different programs running on a single computer.

Kerberos is a computer-network authentication protocol that works on the basis of tickets to allow nodes communicating over a non-secure network to prove their identity to one another in a secure manner. The protocol was named after the character Kerberos from Greek mythology, the ferocious three-headed guard dog of Hades. Its designers aimed it primarily at a client–server model and it provides mutual authentication—both the user and the server verify each other's identity. Kerberos protocol messages are protected against eavesdropping and replay attacks.

Needham–Schroeder protocol cryptographic protocol

The Needham–Schroeder protocol is one of the two key transport protocols intended for use over an insecure network, both proposed by Roger Needham and Michael Schroeder. These are:

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ID-based encryption, or identity-based encryption (IBE), is an important primitive of ID-based cryptography. As such it is a type of public-key encryption in which the public key of a user is some unique information about the identity of the user. This means that a sender who has access to the public parameters of the system can encrypt a message using e.g. the text-value of the receiver's name or email address as a key. The receiver obtains its decryption key from a central authority, which needs to be trusted as it generates secret keys for every user.

In computer security, challenge–response authentication is a family of protocols in which one party presents a question ("challenge") and another party must provide a valid answer ("response") to be authenticated.

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A replay attack is a form of network attack in which a valid data transmission is maliciously or fraudulently repeated or delayed. This is carried out either by the originator or by an adversary who intercepts the data and re-transmits it, possibly as part of a masquerade attack by IP packet substitution. This is one of the lower tier versions of a "Man-in-the-middle attack".

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In public-key cryptography, the Station-to-Station (STS) protocol is a cryptographic key agreement scheme. The protocol is based on classic Diffie–Hellman, and provides mutual key and entity authentication. Unlike the classic Diffie–Hellman, which is not secure against a man-in-the-middle attack, this protocol assumes that the parties have signature keys, which are used to sign messages, thereby providing security against man-in-the-middle attacks.

Distributed System Security Architecture or (DSSA) is a computer security architecture that provides a suite of functions including login, authentication, and access control in a distributed system. To differ from other similar architectures, the DSSA architecture offers the ability to access all these functions without the trusted server being active.

Cryptographic nonce arbitrary number used only once in a cryptographic communication

In cryptography, a nonce is an arbitrary number that can be used just once in a cryptographic communication. It is similar in spirit to a nonce word, hence the name. It is often a random or pseudo-random number issued in an authentication protocol to ensure that old communications cannot be reused in replay attacks. They can also be useful as initialization vectors and in cryptographic hash functions.

Martín Abadi is an Argentinian computer scientist, currently working at Google. He earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1987 as a student of Zohar Manna.

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Yahalom is an authentication and secure key-sharing protocol designed for use on an insecure network such as the Internet. Yahalom uses a trusted arbitrator to distribute a shared key between two people. This protocol can be considered as an improved version of Wide Mouth Frog protocol, but less secure than the Needham–Schroeder protocol.

The Neuman–Stubblebine protocol is a computer network authentication protocol designed for use on insecure networks. It allows individuals communicating over such a network to prove their identity to each other. This protocol utilizes time stamps, but does not depend on synchronized clocks.

In cryptography, Woo–Lam refers to various computer network authentication protocols designed by Simon S. Lam and Thomas Woo. The protocols enable two communicating parties to authenticate each other's identity and to exchange session keys, and involve the use of a trusted key distribution center (KDC) to negotiate between the parties. Both symmetric-key and public-key variants have been described. However, the protocols suffer from various security flaws, and in part have been described as being inefficient compared to alternative authentication protocols.

Algebraic Eraser (AE) is an anonymous key agreement protocol that allows two parties, each having an AE public–private key pair, to establish a shared secret over an insecure channel. This shared secret may be directly used as a key, or to derive another key that can then be used to encrypt subsequent communications using a symmetric key cipher. Algebraic Eraser was developed by Iris Anshell, Michael Anshell, Dorian Goldfeld and Stephane Lemieux. SecureRF owns patents covering the protocol and is attempting to standardize the protocol as part of ISO/IEC 29167-20, a standard for securing radio-frequency identification devices and wireless sensor networks.

References

  1. 1 2 Schneier, Bruce (1996). Applied Cryptography, 2e. Wiley. pp. 56 et seq. ISBN   978-0-471-11709-4.
  2. 1 2 Burrows, Abadi, and Needham. "A Logic of Authentication". ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 8 (1990), pp. 18–36.
  3. ↑ Wide Mouthed Frog, Security Protocols Open Repository
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