Discipline: Computer Sciences and Information Management
Subcategory: Computer Science & Information Systems
Anaiya Reliford - Howard University
Co-Author(s): Anyam Leonardo Ochaf, University of Buea, Buea, Cameroon; Nyah Sylvie; University of Buea, Buea, Cameroon
Modern wireless networks enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services by using high data transmission capabilities. Transmission over wireless networks are susceptible to both passive and active attacks by intruders since many applications do not encrypt the data they communicate over the network due to the fact that, encryption of data results in throughput loss, hence limited access to services by users. There is need to develop highly secured wireless communication systems without compromising the unlimited access to services by users. Hence, any valuable research effort on wireless security should address the tradeoff between security and throughput.
The new scheme displayed by this project draws its motivation from the setbacks of existing wireless security schemes such as key management for large networks and processing time. The scheme utilizes direct sequence spread spectrum techniques and is implemented using FPGA-based signal processing techniques in conjunction with RSA cryptography. It uses shorter keys but has security level higher than that of the traditional 1024-bit RSA. The software designed radio principles of Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Device Language (VHDL) was a pragmatic approach to implementing hardware for the Field Programmable Logic Array (FPGA). This wireless local area network model addressed bandwidth efficiency, messaging privacy, end to end transmission and authenticating terminals. Confidentiality, Data Integrity, Authentication and Non-Repudiation were key parameters to ensure the practicality of design.
The design was successfully modelled on a 4-cell cluster to further prove its practicality prior to implementation of a traditional 7 cell cluster. Further research involves extending the project outside of West Africa. This work could serve as a platform for wireless communication system designers to develop modern high performance systems.
References: Sone, M. E., & Patterson, W. (2017). Wireless Data Communication: Security-Throughput Tradeoff.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): I thank W. Patterson and M. Sone for help in the field and directing the project. S. LeSure at the HUSEM Education Research Center provided logistic support. Funding was provided by and NSF/ Howard University grant to the Global Education and Awareness Research Undergraduate Program (GEAR-UP).
Faculty Advisor: Wayne Patterson, wpatterson@scs.howard.edu
Role: I aided in the RSA Cryptography aspect in trying to design a code that can compute RSA specific functions as well as designing the 4 cluster model to send and receive signals via VHDL.