Developing ethernet enhanced-security system

Abstract

The Ethernet Enhanced-Security System (EESS) provides encryption of Ethernet frames using the DES algorithm with pairwise keys, and a centralized key distribution center (KDC) using a variation of the Needham and Schroeder key distribution protocol. This paper is a discussion of some practical problems that arose during the development of this system. Section 1 contains an overview of the system and section 2 provides more detail on the system architecture. The remaining sections discuss various problem that were considered during the development and how they were resolved.