Concrete Security for Entity Recognition: The Jane Doe Protocol

Entity recognition does not ask whether the message is from some entity X, just whether a message is from the same entity as a previous message. This turns turns out to be very useful for low-end devices. The current paper proposes a new protocol – the “Jane Doe Protocol” –, and provides a formal proof of its concrete security.

The protocol neither employs asymmetric cryptography, nor a trusted third party, nor any key pre-distribution. It is suitable for light-weight cryptographic devices such as sensor network motes and RFID tags.