Secure software download for programmable mobile user equipment

At present, both symmetric and asymmetric cryptography have been proposed to provide secure software download. However, these approaches individually have some advantages and disadvantages. Asymmetric approaches are less efficient and more complex and require long key lengths to achieve the same level of security as the symmetric approach. On the other hand, the symmetric approach requires secret keys to be stored within the terminal and does not provide non-repudiation or anonymous software download. Our innovative approach combines the two (symmetric and asymmetric) to provide secure software download for reconfigurable mobile equipment by using public key infrastructure (PKI) technology to transport a symmetric session key. Our approach provides the following advantages: the ability to broadcast to multiple mobile terminals and provide anonymous software download. Also, new anonymous software download techniques, based on this solution, enable secure software download for each terminal/client request such as downloading free software, tickets or coupons. X.509 and WPKI (WAP PKI) techniques combined with a symmetric solution could be one of the best ways to enable both secure software download as well as secure M-commerce on mobile user equipment.