Securing multimedia services over satellite ATM networks

In recent years there has been increasing interest in interconnecting satel lite and ATM networks, because both share common characteristics of the abi lity to provide bandwidth-on-demand and flexibility of integrating voice, v ideo and data services. There are several new satellite constellation propo sals that support multimedia service and transport ATM traffic. For a succe ssful implementation of such systems it is essential to address the securit y requirements of users, satellite ATM network operators and multimedia ser vice providers. In order to minimize delay and the cost of implementing sec urity systems for satellite ATM networks, the network operator role (in sec urity services) can be limited to the mutual authentication with satellite users during call set-up periods. In this paper a mutual authentication pro tocol between the user and the satellite network is presented using digital signature and public key systems. Also, another mutual authentication prot ocol between the user and the service provider is presented to provide end- to-end authentication and negotiation of security options such as selecting a secret key system and the key length. Finally, a detailed hardware imple mentation of ATM cell payload encryption is presented using the DES/TripleD ES secret key system. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.