Research Paper on:
Bruce D. Nordwall's Article 'The Use of IP and PKI in Avionics'

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
being adopted by the aviation industry for wireless communication onboard commercial flights. The issue this concerns this wireless technology is the same as the concerns that have impacted on the  aviation industry in general since September the 11th and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre; those of security and unauthorised use (Nordwall, 2003) There have always been potential  problems with the use of IP technology by commercial aircraft. The ICAO air traffic data standard is ATN/OSI (Crouzard et al, 2003). This is a system that is  based on the OSI protocols, but with special adaptations for the aviation industry. However, there was always recognised that there would be a need to develop. At the time the  standards were set internet protocol (IPv4) did not have the capabilities of being able to satisfy the needs of the industry, although it was seen as having potential is the  flaws and weaknesses could be dealt with. It is within the last few years that these faults have been dealt with, and IPv6 is being used (Crouzard et al, 2003).  It is an IP system that is being installed into the Airbus A380 that makes use of the Ethernet standard as specified for avionics networks (Nordwall, 2003). IP security appears  to allow a high degree of control, but this alone is not sufficient. The aircraft also needs to talk to other networks, such as those with the ground controller. For  this there is the need for some form of authenticating system that can verify both ends of the transmission. The choice here by Nordwell has been the recommendation of  public key infrastructure (PKI) to manage the components of these transmissions. This is an interesting choice, but also one with which this writer can agree, but only after considering some