Pre-Cached Certificate Validation for Aircraft Secure Handshakes
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Solution Overview
Problem
Aircraft face challenges in establishing secure communications with ground entities due to limited RF bandwidth, where handshake protocols consume valuable resources and often fail due to time-out constraints, necessitating a framework to reduce the risk of such failures.
Innovation Solution
A public key certificate validation system that utilizes a trusted responder to pre-cache validation results in a database, allowing quick access to trust indications for aircraft-ground entity communications, decoupling the validation process from the handshake and reducing the need for real-time RF resource consumption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a traditional handshake protocol is used to establish secure communication, then security is ensured through public key certificate validation, but the communication overhead increases and RF resources are consumed excessively
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by performing public key certificate validation before the actual secure communication begins. The trusted responder validates certificates in advance and stores validation results in a database, so that when communication needs to be established, the validation is already complete or can be quickly retrieved, avoiding the need for lengthy real-time validation during the handshake protocol.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a trusted responder as an intermediary entity between the aircraft and ground entities. This trusted responder handles the certificate validation process separately from the main communication handshake, acting as a mediator that pre-validates certificates and provides validation results to both aircraft and ground entities, thereby reducing the communication overhead during the actual secure connection establishment.
2Measurement precision
If certificate validation is performed in real-time during handshake, then validation accuracy is maintained, but the handshake duration increases causing time-out failures
Solution Approach 1:
The trusted responder performs certificate validation in advance before the handshake protocol executes. Validation results are stored in a database during this preliminary phase, so that when the handshake occurs, the system can quickly retrieve pre-computed validation results rather than performing time-consuming real-time validation, thereby reducing handshake duration while maintaining validation accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies the skipping principle by bypassing the lengthy real-time validation process during the handshake. Instead of performing complete validation at the moment of communication establishment, the system skips directly to retrieving pre-validating results from the database, effectively rushing through the validation step to minimize handshake time while preserving validation integrity through prior thorough checking.
3Speed
If validation requests are processed immediately upon receipt, then response timeliness is improved, but the validation process becomes coupled with handshake timing constraints
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by separating the validation process from the handshake protocol into independent components. The trusted responder handles validation as a distinct, asynchronous process that is not tied to handshake timing constraints. Validation requests can be processed immediately when received, and results are stored for later retrieval, decoupling the validation speed from the handshake duration and allowing each process to optimize independently.
Solution Approach 2:
The trusted responder acts as an intermediary that receives validation requests independently of handshake operations. It processes validation requests as they arrive, stores results in a database, and makes them available to both aircraft and ground entities when needed. This intermediary approach allows validation response speed to be optimized without coupling it to handshake timing constraints, as the validation system operates autonomously.
Data Source
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AI summary
A method of operating a public key certificate validation system for facilitating a secure communication (20) between an aircraft (2) and a ground entity (4) includes: sending a public key certificate of the ground entity (4) from the ground entity (4) to a trusted responder (8); at the trusted responder (8), validating the public key certificate of the ground entity (4) and storing a trust indication regarding the public key certificate of the ground entity in a pre-cached validation database (10); and at the trusted responder (8), maintaining the pre-cached validation database (10) for providing a validation response (32) regarding the public key certificate of the ground entity (4), when a validation request (30), associated with the secure communication between the aircraft (2) and the ground entity (4), reaches the trusted responder (8), wherein the validation response (32) is based on the trust indication regarding the public key certificate of the ground entity (4) from the pre-cached validation database (10).