Receiver access control and secured handoff in mobile multicast using IGMP-AC

Multicasting has not been widely adopted until now, due to lack of receiver or end user (EU) access control. We have developed the Internet group management protocol with access control (IGMP-AC), an extended version of IGMPv3, which provides EU access control by incorporating the AAA framework into the existing multicast service model. Furthermore, IGMP-AC works as an extensible authentication protocol (EAP) lower layer, and thus, supports a variety of different authentication methods. IP multicast will face new challenges if it has to control mobile EUs accessing valuable data in wireless networks. In the absence of receiver access control the operators of the wireless networks will be reluctant to deploy IP multicast, due to possible wastage of valuable bandwidth and other resources from joining of any unauthorized mobile EU and unwanted extension of the distribution tree. Moreover, multicast suffers from denial of service attack more severely than any other attack because of its amplification of data packets enroute. In this paper, we have broadened the scope of IGMP-AC by demonstrating the usability of IGMP-AC in wireless networks for mobile receiver (or EU) access control. In addition, using EAP re-authentication protocol (ERP), we have developed a procedure for secured and fast handoff of mobile EUs in wireless networks.