Description
Modern society is increasingly dependent on the Internet as a communication medium. However, (secure) access to the Internet is not
always a given. Be it areas affected by a natural disaster, demonstrations and protests in autocratically run states,
or simply not yet developed areas in the mobile network in Germany.
In the context of this work, a protocol was therefore developed that enables text communication via Bluetooth Low Energy in such situations.
Bluetooth LE was chosen primarily because of its widespread use and low energy consumption.To enable secure communication, the Double Ratchet
Algorithm, the central building block of the Signal Protocol and other well-known communication applications such as WhatsApp, was used.
Based on the developed protocol an app for mobile devices was developed and implemented alongside the protocol. This was done using the
multi-platform app development framework Ionic that allow to develop applications using web-technologies.
For the user interface we used the React framework and TypeScript, a JavaScript variant with stricter typing, as the programming language.
In addition, we simulated the protocol in various scenarios using Omnet++, a tool that is primarily used for network simulations using
discreet event simulation. Based on the simulations the performance of the protocol was evaluated. We were able to show that the protocol
can be used in scenarios with large crowds as well as in areas with few but mobile devices using the protocol and that secure communication
is possible.
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Thesis topic in co-operation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Integrated Security AISEC, Garching