TAP - practical security protocols for wireless personal devices

Consumer electronic devices, many of which short-range wireless enabled are becoming common. Such wireless devices need to connect to devices with which they might have no prior contact. These connections need to be managed by users who don´t have much computer administration knowledge, where elaborate graphical user interfaces are unlikely and passwords cumbersome. We explain touch mediated association protocols (TAP), based on the intuitive concept of tapping. A simple computational device, the mediator, taps devices facilitating device discovery and secure key distribution. TAP is based on computationally cheap cryptography, doesn´t need GUI or broadcasts for device discovery.