In a distributed computer system and similar networks of computers it is necessary to have mechanisms by which various pairs of principals satisfy themselves mutually about each other`s identity-they should become sure that they really are talking to each other, rather than to an imposter impersonating the other agent. This is the role of an authentication protocol. Various authentication protocols based on public key and symmetric key cryptography have been developed for recent twenty or thirty years. Most of the symmetric key authentication schemes deployed today are based on principles introduced by Needham and Schroeder. In this study, we have proposed a symmetric key authentication scheme basically based on the Needham and Schroeder five-message protocol. The aim of our proposed method is to improve the existing Needham and Schroeder five message protocol in two aspects. One is to improve the time needed to distribute key between pair of nodes, i.e. making the key distribution process faster. And the second aspect is to develop on the weak security of the existing system.
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