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which aims at reducing the computational burden while maintaining the security of
the full protocol, or even in a more realistic way by paying a small loss compared to
the full protocol, is worth pursuing in order to get an improvement in the field.
6.5 Conclusions
We have provided a short overview of the field: from our excursus, it seems clear that
ultra-lightweight authentication is a challenging task, and that the present solutions
are insufficient. The current state of knowledge is overall quite poor.
Perhaps, the first important open problem is to come up with a reasonable model
for the class of ultra-lightweight protocols, in order to get an in-depth understanding
of the possibilities and limits of these protocols.
Moreover, we note that, while most of the ultra-lightweight authentication
protocols are broken, some are more broken than others: if one can impersonate
a tag after 10 6 eavesdropped sessions, or after 1 such session, the two attacks
effectively “break” the protocol in theory, but the question is does in practice the
former represent an “acceptable” or “sufficient” level of security in some settings?
It is quite unique to have this tradeoff between security and complexity measured,
for example but not exclusively in GEs. We should think about this.
Finally, positive, promising avenues, which build on well-known cryptographic
approaches and practices, are available. They are a good starting point to get new
findings and to realize suitable solutions for the application market.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative
Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder.
X. Carpent et al.
which aims at reducing the computational burden while maintaining the security of
the full protocol, or even in a more realistic way by paying a small loss compared to
the full protocol, is worth pursuing in order to get an improvement in the field.
6.5 Conclusions
We have provided a short overview of the field: from our excursus, it seems clear that
ultra-lightweight authentication is a challenging task, and that the present solutions
are insufficient. The current state of knowledge is overall quite poor.
Perhaps, the first important open problem is to come up with a reasonable model
for the class of ultra-lightweight protocols, in order to get an in-depth understanding
of the possibilities and limits of these protocols.
Moreover, we note that, while most of the ultra-lightweight authentication
protocols are broken, some are more broken than others: if one can impersonate
a tag after 10 6 eavesdropped sessions, or after 1 such session, the two attacks
effectively “break” the protocol in theory, but the question is does in practice the
former represent an “acceptable” or “sufficient” level of security in some settings?
It is quite unique to have this tradeoff between security and complexity measured,
for example but not exclusively in GEs. We should think about this.
Finally, positive, promising avenues, which build on well-known cryptographic
approaches and practices, are available. They are a good starting point to get new
findings and to realize suitable solutions for the application market.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative
Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder.