| There are substantial contributions made by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to society today. These contributions manifest themselves in various stages of the supply chain, including reduced inventory management, and improved customer relationships, leading to tremendous cost savings. Using minute transponders (or tags), it is possible to incorporate relevant information in any entity, from a plastic bottle of water to a jumbo jet.However, in today's mobile world, ready yet secure communication between multitude of devices (tags, tag-readers, databases) employing RFID networks is paramount. In addition, the ability to change (and even share) ownership of these devices is equally important. Given the low level of technology available in tags, it is necessary to keep these communications simple or lightweight, yet have the necessary cryptography built in.In this dissertation, we propose lightweight protocols that meet these requirements, and use them for tag authentication and ownership transfer. We rely on a Trusted Third Party in one, and use common cryptographic techniques in both. Thus they are easily implementable, even in the most basic tags. We also perform necessary security analysis to ensure that these protocols are accurate, maintain confidentiality and provide forward security. |
