Identity Management approach in Internet of Things

Abstract

Nowadays, 'people are united in their need to be connected to the Internet anywhere, anyhow, anytime. Thanks to the evolution of Information communication technologies (ICT) more and more exclusive services (smart homes, telemedicine, e-Health applications etc.) are available for the users through heterogeneous Internet of Things (IoT) networks, driven by machine to machine (M2M) communication. Although, the communication is established primarily by using devices, the human users are real “generators” and “consumers” of the input and output information. Thus, the human user has to be considered as a “smart” IoT object, thus he/she should be identified, authenticated, authorized. The process of user identification is considered to be very delicate due to the concerns for the people’s willingness of sharing private information and data. At the same time, the utilized by a certain user devices, should be taken into consideration. Within this context there is a need of attractive user identification and Identity Management (IdM) mechanisms, involving all of the objects in IoT. Furthermore, the active role of the user in the creation of the rules of identification, and having always responsive services, are extremely important and slightly moving the focus to the concept of ‘Internet of People’. The present master thesis addresses the problems of user identification and proposes the design of a novel Single Thing Sign On (STSO) IdM system where the end-user is in the middle of a user-centered services ecosystem. The proposed scheme enables user recognition and assigned services access only by identification of one of the “things” related to the user (personal computing devices, sensors etc). Besides, the author proposes a novel user identification method driven by computing device recognition algorithm (CDR algorithm). The proposed CDR algorithm and IdM system were evaluated through a set of technical and business analytical methodologies in order to proof the concept. The discussion confirms the importance of the researched matter and further clarifies the objectives.

Colophon: This page is part of the AAU Student Projects portal, which is run by Aalborg University. Here, you can find and download publicly available bachelor's theses and master's projects from across the university dating from 2008 onwards. Student projects from before 2008 are available in printed form at Aalborg University Library.

If you have any questions about AAU Student Projects or the research registration, dissemination and analysis at Aalborg University, please feel free to contact the VBN team. You can also find more information in the AAU Student Projects FAQs.

A master thesis from Aalborg University

Identity Management approach in Internet of Things