AAA and Network Security for Mobile Access: Radius, Diameter, EAP, PKI and IP Mobility

11.3. IETF Procedures

Even though most of the protocols for managing network-related problems come from IETF, the strength of IETF seems to be in the design and standardization of protocols that deal with specific network-related issues. The IETF rarely deals with system-level issues, such as developing complete AAA and identity management architecture. So it would be surprising to see frameworks similar to Liberty Alliance deploying multiple protocols and procedures to handle multiple problems, to emerge from IETF. As we saw in many chapters of this book, one powerful framework that comes close is EAP. The EAP framework provides authentication and key management frameworks, while also hinting at edge device discovery and security association establishments (Chapter 3). As we saw in Chapter 10, EAP also allows the user to use pseudo identities in sensitive environments. We also showed how mechanisms such as EAP-TTLS, that allow the user to perform authentication with her home network over untrusted access networks are examples of authentication and identity management protocols that are suitable for multi-operator environment. It is, however, not clear how EAP can be used for authorization and accounting purposes. This means in its current state, EAP is not ready for use as a AAA and identity management framework. It seems, however, that a wave of proposals is coming into IETF that deal with identity management issues and the use of EAP for that purpose. It remains to see what ...