Group key management architectures

This thesis describes an architecture and implementation for doing group key management over a data communications network. The Group Key Management Sample application protocol (GKMS) establishes a shared encryption key among authenticated and authorized collection of network entities. GKMS uses a rimple public key infrastructure for authentication and authorization and uses multicast for rekeying and compromise recovery. An application programming interface multiplexes key management and user application messages. An imple-mentation of GKMS is described and evaluated.