On achieving secure seamless mobility

The emergence of new technologies brings alongside innovative characteristics and, therefore, different requirements to the ones already defined in established technologies. This was evident with the appearance of wireless networks and the introduction of the mobility concept. Existing systems were created to work in a fixed and sometimes portable environment and, although it is possible to apply them in a wireless mobile environment, it is foreseen that they will have an impact in the performance and functionality of the system, threatening the absolute usability of the advantages provided by this new technology. This document presents the results of the experiment to quantify the latency introduced by the IP security protocol and introduces the mobile secure communication channel (MSCC), a novel protocol that provides the services of registration request authentication, key exchange, integrity, data origin authentication, anti-replay protection and confidentiality for the established of a secure communication channel in a wireless mobile environment, therefore representing a first step towards the achievement of secure seamless mobility.