KeyQ: A Dynamic Key Establishment Method Using an RFID Anti-Collision Protocol

Abstract

We present a dynamic key generation method, KeyQ, for establishing shared secret keys in EPCglobal Generation 2 (Gen2) compliant systems. Widespread adoption of Gen2 technologies has increased the need for protecting communications in these systems. The highly constrained resources on Gen2 tags limit the usability of traditional key distribution techniques. Dynamic key generation provides a secure method to protect communications with limited key distribution requirements. Our KeyQ method dynamically generates fresh secret keys based on the Gen2 adaptive Q algorithm. We show that the KeyQ method generates fresh and unique secret keys that cannot be predicted with probability greater than 10(-250) when the number of tags exceeds 100.