An Architecture for Security and Privacy in Mobile Communications

There is much discussion and debate about how to improve the security and privacy of mobile communication systems, both voice and data. Most proposals attempt to provide incremental improvements to systems that are deployed today. Indeed, only incremental improvements are possible, given the regulatory, technological, economic, and historical structure of the telecommunications system. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, caused renewed calls for government abilities to monitor communications. In this paper, we conduct a “thought experiment” to redesign the mobile communications system to provide a high level of security and privacy for the users of the system. We discuss the important requirements and how a different architecture might successfully satisfy them. In doing so, we hope to illuminate the possibilities for secure and private systems, as well as explore their real limits.