Secure wakeup on WLAN for car to home applications MagicPackets for wireless

Authors: Matthias Gerlach, Jens Hünerberg, Bernd Bochow, Christian Maihöfer and Carsten Tittel
Published: In Proceedings of V2VCOM 2005, July 21st, 2005, San Diego, California, USA

Abstract
Wireless networking becomes more and more common. Future cars will bear a wireless communication interface enabling new applications such as cooperative driving, advanced active safety functions and ubiquitous broadband connectivity. Car to home applications are seen among the prominent applications to be deployed in the near future. This kind of applications, and the link of a wireless interface to vital functions of the car require careful consideration of security measures to be taken to protect property and life of the vehicle owner.
The CarSync application developed at our institution is a car to home media synchronization application; it was particularly challenging to devise a suitable and secure wakeup mechanism to allow interactive access which integrates into existing environments at the customer's premises. This paper first presents the requirements and constraints for a wakeup on WLAN mechanism and then provides a detailed description of two different solutions, the first based on hash-chains and the second based on WPA (WiFi Protected Access, i.e. 802.11i). The paper concludes with an assessment of the suitability of both approaches in different settings.