Network Simulation of Group Key Management Protocols

The need for rapidly configurable, secure communica- tion among groups of participants has resulted in the study of group key agreement protocols. The study of these protocols has been primarily theoretical. In this paper, we present the results of simu- lation studies of the methods provided by four group-key agreement protocols, EGK, TGDH, STR and CCEGK. The results of the sim- ulation clarify the theoretical metrics, but also provide insight into the actual relative impact of the metrics, specifically the impact of synchronization. Overall CCEGK performed better in all categories than the other three protocols.