A computationally light scheme for enhanced privacy in LTE

In the authentication and key agreement protocol adopted in LTE, pseudonyms are employed for identity presentation, so that the real identity of the subscriber remains confidential. However, there are occasions where pseudonyms may fail to serve its purpose. In such a situation, there is a backup provision that allows the network to request the subscriber for its real identity. But, here lies the problem; when the real identity is transmitted by the subscriber, his/her privacy gets compromised, as s/he may get tracked/profiled through the real identity. In this paper, a computationally light scheme to replace the backup provision for identity presentation is proposed, where the need to transmit the real identity is eliminated. Unlike other proposals, in this scheme a divergent strategy is adopted at the network; instead of using the real identity to locate the secret key of the subscriber, it is exactly the other way round.