A Lightweight Protocol Based on the SSL Protocol for Handheld Devices

Currently the most popular secure protocol is SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), but it has some negative aspects: First, it imposes a heavier burden on handheld wireless devices, and when a certificate uses PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) e.g. RSA algorithms, it takes a long time to establish a secure connection between client and server. This paper proposes a lightweight protocol based on the SSL protocol, which is more suitable for handheld wireless devices operating under low-capabilities, low-bandwidth and error-prone wireless links. The new lightweight SSL protocol has designed the SSL to reduce the client computational load, leaving the computational intensive operation on the server side. The client does not need to generate and encrypt the pre_master secret nor calculate the master secret. The only operation the client needs to perform is to decrypt the master secret it has received from the server. Moreover it is able to reduce the response time between client and server using SSL session reuse. It is more suitable to securely connect handheld wireless devices and servers.