Authentic Mobilization Orders: Design of an Entrepreneurial Message Authentication System That Provides Authentic Mobilization Orders in the Case of a Military Invasion

Abstract

This Master s thesis proposes a solution to a problem that countries with mobilization-based militaries face. In the event of a sudden invasion from an attacking enemy these militaries will issue and distribute mobilization orders to the civilian members of their mobilization force. But this is also something that the attacking enemy can do. By issuing false mobilization orders the enemy will be able to disturb the mobilization process or achieve a tactical military advantage by controlling this process.The proposed solution utilizes an acknowledged cryptographic technique called digital signature that enables the recipients of a message to verify whether or not the received message in fact is authentic based on the accompanying digital signature. This enables each end-user of the proposed system to independently decide whether or not the alleged mobilization order is legitimate. The implication of this is that a secure deployment of such a system will remove the possibility that the attacking enemy will be able to disturb or control the mobilization process by means of issuing and distributing false mobilization orders.A thorough and comprehensive process is needed in order to design and develop a secure, robust, and practical version of the system described above. Such a well-functioning system would among other things require a specific type of digital signature scheme, a thorough security design, a large amount of pre-distributed signature verification units with computational capacities, and a user-friendly interface in order to avoid incorrect usage of such units.This thesis provides a description of a secure, robust and practical system through an overall system description, a comprehensive security analysis, and a description of the design and development of a software prototype of the signature verification unit.