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TCP/IP goes mobile!
The complete guide to developing, using, and profiting from Mobile IP networks.
Mobile IP brings together two of the world's most powerful technology trends: the Internet and mobile communications. Whether you're planning to develop, deploy, utilize, or invest in Mobile IP networks, this book delivers the up-to-date information you need-with clarity and insight. Discover:
- What problems Mobile IP is designed to solve, and how it solves them
- How to use Mobile IP in real-world intranet and Internet-wide applications
- How to manage the security issues associated with Mobile IP
- Business models for delivering commercial Mobile IP services
- Which technical issues still need work-and possible solutions
In Mobile IP: The Internet Unplugged, the co-chair of the Mobile IP Working Group offers an insider's view of critical Mobile IP concepts like agent discovery, registration, and IP encapsulation. He presents detailed coverage of Mobile IP security, including the role of key management, encryption, authentication, integrity checking, and nonrepudiation. Finally, he presents a compelling vision of the future, where the benefits of standards-based mobile data are available everywhere.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface The dramatic improvement in size, weight, and sophistication of notebook computers; an increasing reliance on information available on computer networks, most notably the Internet; and the tremendous growth in the number of telecommuters and mobile workers, are driving the creation of standards for mobile computing and networking. This book is about one such standard, Mobile=A0IP, which allows a mobile node (e.g., a laptop or notebook computer) to change its location without the need to restart its applications or terminate any ongoing communication-something currently not accommodated by the Internet protocols. Mobile=A0IP is an Internet standards-track protocol which enhances the existing Internet Protocol (IP) to accommodate mobility. The book provides a complete guide to understanding Mobile=A0IP at virtually any level of detail desired. It begins by describing the context within which Mobile=A0IP operates. Then it describes the problems that Mobile=A0IP is designed to solve, how it solves them, and how Mobile=A0IP can be applied in a number of example configurations. The book also goes into considerable detail on the security implications of so applying Mobile=A0IP and enumerates the technologies that can be used to combat existing and resulting security threats. The book also provides insight into the open issues in mobile computing and offers some possible solutions to the areas requiring further research. The purposes of this book are threefold. The first is to demystify the Internet standards documents, or Request For Comments (RFCs), that define Mobile=A0IP. Thus anyone with a casual, academic, or compelling need to understand this new technology will find the treatment of Mobile=A0IP both accessible and thorough. The second purpose is to describe the administrative and security implications of Mobile=A0IP to anyone considering its deployment. This group includes network administrators, corporate (network) security officers, network architects, and both wired and wireless service providers, among others. The third purpose is to help implementors understand what is not well explained, not explained at all, or explained incorrectly in the current standards documents. The scope of this book is therefore limited to Mobile=A0IP, its applications, and its security implications. This book does not duplicate information readily available in other works, such as detailed descriptions of all layers of the protocol stack. Specifically, the book does not provide a detailed look at every possible physical medium over which Mobile=A0IP can run, since this information is available elsewhere and since Mobile=A0IP is completely independent of such media. Readers will appreciate the infrequent use of acronyms, the opposite of which plagues many works on computer networking. The book describes difficult topics in plain English and provides many examples and figures to illustrate its points. Also, the book stands on its own by providing enough background information for a reader to fully understand the nature of any given problem before solutions to that problem are investigated. Every attempt has been made to provide forward references to material not yet covered, such that readers will not be left hanging and wondering whether or not they have failed to understand a given section. Computer jargon is avoided at all costs and all terminology within the book is italicized and defined in a thorough glossary. The book begins with a primer on computer networking, which provides an explanation of the protocol-layering models and the Internet Protocol (IP) in particular. Then it describes Mobile=A0IP in detail, at a level which implementors will find extremely valuable. Then the book progresses through applications of Mobile=A0IP while simultaneously addressing the security threats to users, their networks, and service providers. Then future topics, including mobility for version 6 of the Internet Protocol and some unresolved issues of Mobile=A0IP, are described. Finally, a vision is offered of a world in which Mobile=A0IP has been fully deployed.
