Recognizing entities across protocols with unified UUID discovery and asymmetric keys

The Internet-of-Things vision introduces scenarios composed of many devices and protocols, in order to support real world user interactions. This also brought a fractured vision, since it is hard to extend communication over diverse technologies, even for communication with the same devices. In this paper we propose to address the fractured loT ecosystem using a UUID based discovery layer that allows recognising entities across different protocols. By using asymmetric keys as the basis for a UUID device identification namespace, we provide a stable identification layer that enables recognizing entities (devices) across protocols and simultaneously retaining a security context over different protocols. We use this identification and discovery layer as the basis for an integrated framework where communication between devices can happen over any available channel or technology. The framework is instantiated in an experimental prototype, used to assess the pragmatic changes and overall impact of using a cross-protocol identification scheme.