OMAC: A new access control architecture for overlay multicast communications

Emad Eldin Mohamed, Ezedin Barka

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Multicast communications concern the transfer of data among multiple users. Multicast communications can be provided at the network layera-an example is IP multicasta-or at the application layer, also called overlay multicast. An important issue in multicast communications is to control how different usersa-senders, receivers, and delivery nodesa-access the transmitted data as well as the network resources. Many researchers have proposed solutions addressing access control in IP multicast. However, little attention has been paid to overlay multicast. In this paper, we investigate the access control issues in overlay multicast and present OMAC: a new solution to address these issues. OMAC provides access control for senders, receivers, and delivery nodes in overlay multicast. The proposed architecture, which is based on symmetric key cryptosystem, centralizes the authentication process in one server whereas it distributes the authorization process among the delivery nodes. Moreover, delivery nodes are utilized as a buffer zone between end systems and the authentication server, making it less exposed to malicious end systems. To evaluate our work, we have used simulation to compare the performance of OMAC against previous solutions. Results of the simulation show that OMAC outperforms previous multicast access control schemes.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)761-775
Number of pages15
JournalInternational Journal of Communication Systems
Volume24
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2011

Keywords

  • access control
  • multicast security
  • network security
  • overlay multicast

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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