Fine-Grained Anonymous Access for Satellite Communication Using Zero Knowledge Proof
Qiwei Hu, Baolong Li, Jiaxi Zhou, Tao Jiang · IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology · 2025
Satellite communication (SC) is an indispensable component of future communication systems due to its extensive coverage and flexibility. In this work, we investigate the fine-grained anonymous access technique, which not only ensures user equipments (UEs) privacy in the open SC environment but also enables satellites to enforce fine-grained access policies with low overhead. Firstly, we design a Merkle forest based framework that facilitates efficient UE attribute data synchronization, leveraging the broadcasting capability of satellites. Subsequently, we construct a zero-knowledge based protocol for UE authentication, key agreement, and handover in SC. The analysis demonstrates the protocol's resilience against prevalent attacks, and simulation results validate its practicality.