Subject: New EAP scheme for 3G AKA

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 15:37:25 +0300

Hello,

I'd like to announce that Henry Haverinen and myself have
produced an Internet-Draft that specifies how to run the
3G authentication scheme "AKA" within EAP:

  http://search.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-arkko-pppext-eap-aka-00.txt

The abstract states "This document specifies an Extensible
Authentication Protocol (EAP) mechanism for authentication
and session key distribution using the UMTS AKA authentication
mechanism. AKA is based on symmetric keys, and runs in a UMTS
Subscriber Identity Module, a smart card like device. AKA
provides also backward compatibility to GSM authentication,
making it possible to use EAP AKA for authenticating both GSM
and UMTS subscribers."

Comments on this draft would be wellcome. We'd also like to
hold a presentation on this draft in the London IETF.

Finally, we'd like this working group to consider this
draft for a Standards Track status, for the following
reasons:

- The draft is able to handle both GSM and UTMS
  authentication.
- The large number of existing and future GSM/UMTS
  clients (500-1000M) makes many applications likely.
- Possibilities for GSM-UMTS-WLAN-HIPERLAN interworking
  scenarios would benefit from an authentication scheme
  for which substantial deployment and billing infra-
  structure already exists.
- First 3GPP indications point to an interest
  to use this scheme as a part of their infrastructure.
(- The 3GPP2 has also adopted AKA though I can't say
  exactly in which manner they intend to use it, and
  whether the EAP AKA scheme would be useful to them.)

Jari