Anonymous client authentication for transport layer security

Abstract

Nowadays, anonymity and privacy protecting mechanisms are becoming more and more important. The anonymity of platforms and the privacy of users operating in the Internet are major concerns of current research activities. Although different techniques for protecting anonymity exist, standard protocols like Transport Layer Security are still missing adequate support for these technologies. In this paper, we analyze how Trusted Computing technologies and anonymous credential systems can be used in order to allow clients to establish anonymous authentication over secure channels. Furthermore, we analyze how these technologies can be integrated into common security frameworks like the Java Cryptography Architecture. We discuss the performance that can be achieved with this approach and analyse which performance can be expected from currently available Trusted Platform Modules. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.