Towards a Secure and User Friendly Authentication Method for Public Wireless Networks

The goal of this thesis was to develop a secure and user friendly authentication scheme for public wireless networks (PWLANs). In contrast to private wireless networks, public wireless networks need a proper authentication scheme for several reasons. First of all, the network operator must be able to identify a user in case an incident happens. Furthermore, such networks are usually controlled by a commercial operator who will hardly allow access for free. This leads to the need for a secure and reliable authentication method. However, the authentication method must be userfriendly too in order to be acceptable. The only "wireless networks" users know so far are cellular networks, which are very easy to use. Users do therefore ask for a comparable experience in public wireless networks. This thesis evaluates the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) as an authentication device. The TPM is a small cryptographic module built into almost every new computer. This thesis shows how to use the TPM as an authentication device in EAPTLS. Furthermore, this thesis shows theoretical and real world evaluations of EAPTLS with the TPM. It will be shown that this authentication method provides a good level of security as well as good usability.