IDENTITY PRIVACY IN WIRELESS NETWORKS

摘要

Systems and techniques are disclosed to protect a user equipment's international mobile subscriber identity by providing a privacy mobile subscriber identity instead. In an attach attempt to a serving network, the UE provides the PMSI instead of IMSI, protecting the IMSI from exposure. The PMSI is determined between a home network server and the UE so that intermediate node elements in the serving network do not have knowledge of the relationship between the PMSI and the IMSI. Upon receipt of the PMSI in the attach request, the server generates a next PMSI to be used in a subsequent attach request and sends the next PMSI to the UE for confirmation. The UE confirms the next PMSI to synchronize between the UE and server and sends an acknowledgment token to the server. The UE and the server then each update local copies of the current and next PMSI values.

主权项

1. A method for network access by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
sending, from the UE, a privacy mobile subscriber identity (PMSI) in place of an international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) to identify the UE with an initial attach message to a serving network; receiving, from the serving network, an authentication request that includes a next PMSI determined by a server in communication with the serving network, the next PMSI being derived from the PMSI; and sending, from the UE, an acknowledgment of receipt of the next PMSI to the server via the serving network.