EP4652700A1 - Counter mode with cipher block chaining message authentication code protocol (ccmp) encapsulation and decapsulation for enhanced privacy frames including multi-link operation - Google Patents

Abstract

In a counter mode with cipher block chaining message authentication code protocol (CCMP) cryptographic encapsulation example, a station (STA) may increment a packet number (PN). The STA may construct additional authentication data (AAD) based on a plain text medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (MPDU) header and an association and authentication medium access control (aaMAC) address. The STA may construct a nonce based on the aaMAC address, the PN, and a priority value of the MPDU. The STA may form an encrypted message integrity code (MIC) based on the ADD and the nonce. The STA may form an encrypted MPDU based on the MPDU header, a cipher text, the MIC and a CCMP header. The STA may then transmit the encrypted MDPU. The aaMAC address may be different from a multi-link device (MID) MAC address. The STA may be in non-multi-link operation (MLO) communication with an access point (AP).

Description

COUNTER MODE WITH CIPHER BLOCK CHAINING MESSAGE AUTHENTICATION CODE PROTOCOL (CCMP) ENCAPSULATION AND DECAPSULATION FOR ENHANCED PRIVACY FRAMES INCLUDING MULTI-LINK OPERATION

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/439,742, filed January 18, 2023, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/451 ,407, filed March 10, 2023, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

[0002] Users of wireless communication systems are increasingly interested in improved privacy protections. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 has seen a trend in the last several years towards providing new mechanisms for the protection of the privacy of individuals using wireless local area network (WLAN) technology. One of the main areas of work in this aspect in the last several years has been protecting users from those who track them. This means protecting the possible identification of users as they roam to different locations and different IEEE 802.11 networks.

[0003] Several modifications to the baseline specification were introduced in IEEE 802.11aq, and these modifications support the current medium access control (MAC) privacy features. These features focus on protecting the privacy of the user in a non-associated state.

SUMMARY

[0004] Methods and apparatus for counter mode with cipher block chaining message authentication code protocol (CCMP) cryptographic encapsulation are provided herein. In an example, a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) may generate a medium access control (MAC) service data unit (MSDU). Further, a frame of the MSDU may be anonymized, in an example. The frame may be anonymized by replacing an association and authentication medium access control (aaMAC) with an over the air medium access control (otaMAC) address.

[0005] In an example, a station (STA) may increment a packet number (PN). Also, the STA may construct additional authentication data (AAD) based on a plain text MAC protocol data unit (MPDU) header and an aaMAC address Further, the STA may construct a nonce based on the aaMAC address, the PN, and a priority value of the MPDU. In addition, the STA may form an encrypted message integrity code (MIC) based on the ADD and the nonce. Additionally, the STA may form an encrypted MPDU based on the MPDU header, a cipher text, the encrypted MIC and a CCMP header. The STA may then transmit the encrypted MDPU. Moreover, the STA may be in non-multi-link operation (MLO) communication with an access point (AP).

[0006] In another example, the aaMAC address may be different from an multi-link device (MLD) MAC address. Also, the aaMAC may be a securely exchanged MAC address, in an example. In an additional example, the aaMAC may be a MAC address used for the association and authentication process between the AP and the STA. Also, the aaMAC may be indexed in a robust security network association (RSNA), in an example. Further, the aaMAC address may be used to set up the RSNA, in an example. Moreover, the aaMAC may be different from an otaMAC address, and the otaMAC may be used during an association process, in an example. In an additional example, the aaMAC address may be used for routing traffic to the STA on a distribution system (DS) network segment. In another example, the aaMAC address may be used for mobility related operations. In an additional example, the aaMAC address may be used for fast transition mechanisms. [0007] In a further example, the CCMP header may be constructed based on the PN and a key identity (KeylD) associated with the aaMAC address In a further example, the cipher text may be formed based on the AAD, the nonce, data of the plain text MDPU and a temporal key (TK) associated with the aaMAC address. Moreover, the encrypted MIC may be formed further based on the data of the plain text MDPU and the TK associated with the aaMAC address.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0008] A more detailed understanding may be had from the following description, given by way of example in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals in the figures indicate like elements, and wherein:

[0009] FIG. 1A is a system diagram illustrating an example communications system in which one or more disclosed embodiments may be implemented;

[0010] FIG. 1 B is a system diagram illustrating an example wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) that may be used within the communications system illustrated in FIG. 1A according to an embodiment;

[0011] FIG. 1C is a system diagram illustrating an example radio access network (RAN) and an example core network (CN) that may be used within the communications system illustrated in FIG. 1A according to an embodiment;

[0012] FIG. 1D is a system diagram illustrating a further example RAN and a further example CN that may be used within the communications system illustrated in FIG. 1A according to an embodiment;

[0013] FIG. 2 is an architectural diagram illustrating an example multi-link device (MLD) and an affiliated station (STA) communication system;

[0014] FIG. 3 (including FIGs. 3A and 3B) is an architectural diagram illustrating an example of a medium access control (MAC) data plane architecture used when transparent fast session transfer (FST) is not being used;

[0015] FIG. 4 (including FIGs. 4A, 4B and 4C) is an architectural diagram illustrating an example of a MAC data plane architecture used when transparent FST is being used;

[0016] FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a counter mode with cipher block chaining message authentication code protocol (CCMP) cryptographic encapsulation process;

[0017] FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a CCMP decapsulation process; [0018] FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating an example of another CCMP cryptographic encapsulation process;

[0019] FIG. 8 is a format diagram illustrating an example of additional authentication data (AAD) construction for protocol version 0 (PVO) MAC protocol data units (MPDUs);

[0020] FIG. 9 is a format diagram illustrating an example of a counter mode with cipher block chaining message authentication code (CBC-MAC) (CCM) nonce;

[0021] FIG. 10 is a format diagram illustrating an example of a CCM nonce flags field;

[0022] FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating another example of another CCMP decapsulation process;

[0023] FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a further CCMP cryptographic encapsulation process;

[0024] FIG. 13 is a flow chart diagram of a CCMP encapsulation process; and

[0025] FIG. 14 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a further CCMP decapsulation process.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0026] FIG. 1A is a diagram illustrating an example communications system 100 in which one or more disclosed embodiments may be implemented. The communications system 100 may be a multiple access system that provides content, such as voice, data, video, messaging, broadcast, etc., to multiple wireless users. The communications system 100 may enable multiple wireless users to access such content through the sharing of system resources, including wireless bandwidth. For example, the communications systems 100 may employ one or more channel access methods, such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA), singlecarrier FDMA (SC-FDMA), zero-tail unique-word discrete Fourier transform Spread OFDM (ZT-UW-DFT-S- OFDM), unique word OFDM (UW-OFDM), resource block-filtered OFDM, filter bank multicarrier (FBMC), and the like.

[0027] As shown in FIG. 1A, the communications system 100 may include wireless transmit/receive units (WTRUs) 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d, a radio access network (RAN) 104, a core network (ON) 106, a public switched telephone network (PSTN) 108, the Internet 110, and other networks 112, though itwill be appreciated that the disclosed embodiments contemplate any number of WTRUs, base stations, networks, and/or network elements. Each of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d may be any type of device configured to operate and/or communicate in a wireless environment By way of example, the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d, any of which may be referred to as a station (STA), may be configured to transmit and/or receive wireless signals and may include a user equipment (UE), a mobile station, a fixed or mobile subscriber unit, a subscription-based unit, a pager, a cellular telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a smartphone, a laptop, a netbook, a personal computer, a wireless sensor, a hotspot or Mi-Fi device, an Internet of Things (loT) device, a watch or other wearable, a head-mounted display (HMD), a vehicle, a drone, a medical device and applications (e.g., remote surgery), an industrial device and applications (e.g., a robot and/or other wireless devices operating in an industrial and/or an automated processing chain contexts), a consumer electronics device, a device operating on commercial and/or industrial wireless networks, and the like. Any of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c and 102d may be interchangeably referred to as a UE.

[0028] The communications systems 100 may also include a base station 114a and/or a base station 114b. Each of the base stations 114a, 114b may be any type of device configured to wirelessly interface with at least one of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d to facilitate access to one or more communication networks, such as the CN 106, the Internet 110, and/or the other networks 112. By way of example, the base stations 114a, 114b may be a base transceiver station (BTS), a NodeB, an eNode B (eNB), a Home Node B, a Home eNode B, a next generation NodeB, such as a gNode B (gNB), a new radio (NR) NodeB, a site controller, an access point (AP), a wireless router, and the like. While the base stations 114a, 114b are each depicted as a single element, it will be appreciated that the base stations 114a, 114b may include any number of interconnected base stations and/or network elements.

[0029] The base station 114a may be part of the RAN 104, which may also include other base stations and/or network elements (not shown), such as a base station controller (BSC), a radio network controller (RNC), relay nodes, and the like. The base station 114a and/or the base station 114b may be configured to transmit and/or receive wireless signals on one or more carrier frequencies, which may be referred to as a cell (not shown). These frequencies may be in licensed spectrum, unlicensed spectrum, or a combination of licensed and unlicensed spectrum A cell may provide coverage for a wireless service to a specific geographical area that may be relatively fixed or that may change over time. The cell may further be divided into cell sectors. For example, the cell associated with the base station 114a may be divided into three sectors. Thus, in one embodiment, the base station 114a may include three transceivers, i.e., one for each sector of the cell. In an embodiment, the base station 114a may employ multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) technology and may utilize multiple transceivers for each sector of the cell. For example, beamforming may be used to transmit and/or receive signals in desired spatial directions.

[0030] The base stations 114a, 114b may communicate with one or more of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d over an air interface 116, which may be any suitable wireless communication link (e.g., radio frequency (RF), microwave, centimeter wave, micrometer wave, infrared (IR), ultraviolet (UV), visible light, etc.). The air interface 116 may be established using any suitable radio access technology (RAT).

[0031 ] More specifically, as noted above, the communications system 100 may be a multiple access system and may employ one or more channel access schemes, such as CDMA, TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA, SC-FDMA, and the like. For example, the base station 114a in the RAN 104 and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement a radio technology such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), which may establish the air interface 116 using wideband CDMA (WCDMA). WCDMA may include communication protocols such as High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) and/or Evolved HSPA (HSPA+). HSPA may include High-Speed Downlink (DL) Packet Access (HSDPA) and/or High-Speed Uplink (UL) Packet Access (HSUPA).

[0032] In an embodiment, the base station 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement a radio technology such as Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA), which may establish the air interface 116 using Long Term Evolution (LTE) and/or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) and/or LTE-Advanced Pro (LTE-A Pro). [0033] In an embodiment, the base station 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement a radio technology such as NR Radio Access , which may establish the air interface 116 using NR.

[0034] In an embodiment, the base station 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement multiple radio access technologies. For example, the base station 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement LTE radio access and NR radio access together, for instance using dual connectivity (DC) principles. Thus, the air interface utilized by WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may be characterized by multiple types of radio access technologies and/or transmissions sent to/from multiple types of base stations (e.g , an eNB and a gNB).

[0035] In other embodiments, the base station 114a and the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement radio technologies such as IEEE 802.11 (i.e , Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), IEEE 802.16 (i.e., Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX)), CDMA2000, CDMA2000 1X, CDMA2000 EV-DO, Interim Standard 2000 (IS-2000), Interim Standard 95 (IS-95), Interim Standard 856 (IS-856), Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), GSM EDGE (GERAN), and the like. [0036] The base station 114b in FIG 1A may be a wireless router, Home Node B, Home eNode B, or access point, for example, and may utilize any suitable RAT for facilitating wireless connectivity in a localized area, such as a place of business, a home, a vehicle, a campus, an industrial facility, an air corridor (e.g., for use by drones), a roadway, and the like. In one embodiment, the base station 114b and the WTRUs 102c, 102d may implement a radio technology such as IEEE 802.11 to establish a wireless local area network (WLAN). In an embodiment, the base station 114b and the WTRUs 102c, 102d may implement a radio technology such as IEEE 802.15 to establish a wireless personal area network (WPAN). In yet another embodiment, the base station 114b and the WTRUs 102c, 102d may utilize a cellular-based RAT (e.g., WCDMA, CDMA2000, GSM, LTE, LTE-A, LTE-A Pro, NR etc.) to establish a picocell or femtocell. As shown in FIG. 1A, the base station 114b may have a direct connection to the Internet 110. Thus, the base station 114b may not be required to access the Internet 110 via the CN 106.

[0037] The RAN 104 may be in communication with the CN 106, which may be any type of network configured to provide voice, data, applications, and/or voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services to one or more of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d. The data may have varying quality of service (QoS) requirements, such as differing throughput requirements, latency requirements, error tolerance requirements, reliability requirements, data throughput requirements, mobility requirements, and the like. The CN 106 may provide call control, billing services, mobile location-based services, pre-paid calling, Internet connectivity, video distribution, etc., and/or perform high-level security functions, such as user authentication. Although not shown in FIG. 1A, it will be appreciated that the RAN 104 and/or the CN 106 may be in direct or indirect communication with other RANs that employ the same RAT as the RAN 104 or a different RAT. For example, in addition to being connected to the RAN 104, which may be utilizing a NR radio technology, the CN 106 may also be in communication with another RAN (not shown) employing a GSM, UMTS, CDMA 2000, WiMAX, E-UTRA, or WiFi radio technology.

[0038] The CN 106 may also serve as a gateway for the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d to access the PSTN 108, the Internet 110, and/or the other networks 112. The PSTN 108 may include circuit-switched telephone networks that provide plain old telephone service (POTS). The Internet 110 may include a global system of interconnected computer networks and devices that use common communication protocols, such as the transmission control protocol (TCP), user datagram protocol (UDP) and/or the internet protocol (IP) in the TCP/IP internet protocol suite. The networks 112 may include wired and/or wireless communications networks owned and/or operated by other service providers. For example, the networks 112 may include another CN connected to one or more RANs, which may employ the same RAT as the RAN 104 or a different RAT.

[0039] Some or all of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d in the communications system 100 may include multi-mode capabilities (e.g., the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, 102d may include multiple transceivers for communicating with different wireless networks over different wireless links). For example, the WTRU 102c shown in FIG. 1 A may be configured to communicate with the base station 114a, which may employ a cellularbased radio technology, and with the base station 114b, which may employ an IEEE 802 radio technology.

[0040] FIG. 1 B is a system diagram illustrating an example WTRU 102. As shown in FIG. 1B, the WTRU 102 may include a processor 118, a transceiver 120, a transmit/receive element 122, a speaker/microphone 124, a keypad 126, a display/touchpad 128, non-removable memory 130, removable memory 132, a power source 134, a global positioning system (GPS) chipset 136, and/or other peripherals 138, among others. It will be appreciated that the WTRU 102 may include any sub-combination of the foregoing elements while remaining consistent with an embodiment.

[0041] The processor 118 may be a general purpose processor, a special purpose processor, a conventional processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in association with a DSP core, a controller, a microcontroller, Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), any other type of integrated circuit (IC), a state machine, and the like. The processor 118 may perform signal coding, data processing, power control, input/output processing, and/or any other functionality that enables the WTRU 102 to operate in a wireless environment. The processor 118 may be coupled to the transceiver 120, which may be coupled to the transmit/receive element 122. While FIG. 1 B depicts the processor 118 and the transceiver 120 as separate components, it will be appreciated that the processor 118 and the transceiver 120 may be integrated together in an electronic package or chip. [0042] The transmit/receive element 122 may be configured to transmit signals to, or receive signals from, a base station (e.g., the base station 114a) over the air interface 116. For example, in one embodiment, the transmit/receive element 122 may be an antenna configured to transmit and/or receive RF signals. In an embodiment, the transmit/receive element 122 may be an emitter/detector configured to transmit and/or receive IR, UV, or visible light signals, for example. In yet another embodiment, the transmit/receive element 122 may be configured to transmit and/or receive both RF and light signals. It will be appreciated that the transmit/receive element 122 may be configured to transmit and/or receive any combination of wireless signals.

[0043] Although the transmit/receive element 122 is depicted in FIG. 1 B as a single element, the WTRU 102 may include any number of transmit/receive elements 122. More specifically, the WTRU 102 may employ MIMO technology. Thus, in one embodiment, the WTRU 102 may include two or more transmit/receive elements 122 (e g., multiple antennas) for transmitting and receiving wireless signals over the air interface 116. [0044] The transceiver 120 may be configured to modulate the signals that are to be transmitted by the transmit/receive element 122 and to demodulate the signals that are received by the transmit/receive element 122. As noted above, the WTRU 102 may have multi-mode capabilities. Thus, the transceiver 120 may include multiple transceivers for enabling the WTRU 102 to communicate via multiple RATs, such as NR and IEEE 802.11 , for example.

[0045] The processor 118 of the WTRU 102 may be coupled to, and may receive user input data from, the speaker/microphone 124, the keypad 126, and/or the display/touchpad 128 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) display unit or organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display unit) The processor 118 may also output user data to the speaker/microphone 124, the keypad 126, and/or the display/touchpad 128. In addition, the processor 118 may access information from, and store data in, any type of suitable memory, such as the non-removable memory 130 and/or the removable memory 132. The non-removable memory 130 may include random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), a hard disk, or any other type of memory storage device. The removable memory 132 may include a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, a memory stick, a secure digital (SD) memory card, and the like. In other embodiments, the processor 118 may access information from, and store data in, memory that is not physically located on the WTRU 102, such as on a server or a home computer (not shown).

[0046] The processor 118 may receive power from the power source 134, and may be configured to distribute and/or control the power to the other components in the WTRU 102. The power source 134 may be any suitable device for powering the WTRU 102. For example, the power source 134 may include one or more dry cell batteries (e.g., nickel-cadmium (NiCd), nickel-zinc (NiZn), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), lithium-ion (Li- ion), etc.), solar cells, fuel cells, and the like.

[0047] The processor 118 may also be coupled to the GPS chipset 136, which may be configured to provide location information (e.g., longitude and latitude) regarding the current location of the WTRU 102. In addition to, or in lieu of, the information from the GPS chipset 136, the WTRU 102 may receive location information over the air interface 116 from a base station (e.g., base stations 114a, 114b) and/or determine its location based on the timing of the signals being received from two or more nearby base stations. It will be appreciated that the WTRU 102 may acquire location information by way of any suitable location-determination method while remaining consistent with an embodiment

[0048] The processor 118 may further be coupled to other peripherals 138, which may include one or more software and/or hardware modules that provide additional features, functionality and/or wired or wireless connectivity. For example, the peripherals 138 may include an accelerometer, an e-compass, a satellite transceiver, a digital camera (for photographs and/or video), a universal serial bus (USB) port, a vibration device, a television transceiver, a handsfree headset, a Bluetooth® module, a frequency modulated (FM) radio unit, a digital music player, a media player, a video game player module, an Internet browser, a Virtual Reality and/or Augmented Reality (VR/AR) device, an activity tracker, and the like. The peripherals 138 may include one or more sensors. The sensors may be one or more of a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a hall effect sensor, a magnetometer, an orientation sensor, a proximity sensor, a temperature sensor, a time sensor; a geolocation sensor, an altimeter, a light sensor, a touch sensor, a magnetometer, a barometer, a gesture sensor, a biometric sensor, a humidity sensor and the like.

[0049] The WTRU 102 may include a full duplex radio for which transmission and reception of some or all of the signals (e g., associated with particular subframes for both the UL (e.g., for transmission) and DL (e.g., for reception) may be concurrent and/or simultaneous. The full duplex radio may include an interference management unit to reduce and or substantially eliminate self-interference via either hardware (e.g., a choke) or signal processing via a processor (e.g., a separate processor (not shown) or via processor 118). In an embodiment, the WTRU 102 may include a half-duplex radio for which transmission and reception of some or all of the signals (e.g., associated with particular subframes for either the UL (e g., for transmission) or the DL (e g., for reception)).

[0050] FIG. 1C is a system diagram illustrating the RAN 104 and the CN 106 according to an embodiment. As noted above, the RAN 104 may employ an E-UTRA radio technology to communicate with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c over the air interface 116. The RAN 104 may also be in communication with the CN 106.

[0051] The RAN 104 may include eNode-Bs 160a, 160b, 160c, though it will be appreciated that the RAN 104 may include any number of eNode-Bs while remaining consistent with an embodiment. The eNode-Bs 160a, 160b, 160c may each include one or more transceivers for communicating with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c over the air interface 116. In one embodiment, the eNode-Bs 160a, 160b, 160c may implement MIMO technology. Thus, the eNode-B 160a, for example, may use multiple antennas to transmit wireless signals to, and/or receive wireless signals from, the WTRU 102a.

[0052] Each of the eNode-Bs 160a, 160b, 160c may be associated with a particular cell (not shown) and may be configured to handle radio resource management decisions, handover decisions, scheduling of users in the UL and/or DL, and the like. As shown in FIG. 1 C, the eNode-Bs 160a, 160b, 160c may communicate with one another over an X2 interface.

[0053] The CN 106 shown in FIG. 1C may include a mobility management entity (MME) 162, a serving gateway (SGW) 164, and a packet data network (PDN) gateway (PGW) 166. While the foregoing elements are depicted as part of the CN 106, it will be appreciated that any of these elements may be owned and/or operated by an entity other than the CN operator.

[0054] The MME 162 may be connected to each of the eNode-Bs 162a, 162b, 162c in the RAN 104 via an S1 interface and may serve as a control node. For example, the MME 162 may be responsible for authenticating users of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, bearer activation/deactivation, selecting a particular serving gateway during an initial attach of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, and the like. The MME 162 may provide a control plane function for switching between the RAN 104 and other RANs (not shown) that employ other radio technologies, such as GSM and/or WCDMA

[0055] The SGW 164 may be connected to each of the eNode Bs 160a, 160b, 160c in the RAN 104 via the S1 interface. The SGW 164 may generally route and forward user data packets to/from the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c. The SGW 164 may perform other functions, such as anchoring user planes during inter-eNode B handovers, triggering paging when DL data is available for the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, managing and storing contexts of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, and the like.

[0056] The SGW 164 may be connected to the PGW 166, which may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c with access to packet-switched networks, such as the Internet 110, to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c and IP-enabled devices.

[0057] The CN 106 may facilitate communications with other networks For example, the CN 106 may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c with access to circuit-switched networks, such as the PSTN 108, to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c and traditional land-line communications devices. For example, the CN 106 may include, or may communicate with, an IP gateway (e.g., an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) server) that serves as an interface between the CN 106 and the PSTN 108. In addition, the CN 106 may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c with access to the other networks 112, which may include other wired and/or wireless networks that are owned and/or operated by other service providers.

[0058] Although the WTRU is described in FIGS. 1A-1 D as a wireless terminal, it is contemplated that in certain representative embodiments that such a terminal may use (e.g., temporarily or permanently) wired communication interfaces with the communication network.

[0059] In representative embodiments, the other network 112 may be a WLAN.

[0060] A WLAN in Infrastructure Basic Service Set (BSS) mode may have an Access Point (AP) for the BSS and one or more stations (STAs) associated with the AP. The AP may have access or an interface to a distribution system (DS) or another type of wired/wireless network that carries traffic in to and/or out of the BSS. Traffic to STAs that originates from outside the BSS may arrive through the AP and may be delivered to the STAs. Traffic originating from STAs to destinations outside the BSS may be sent to the AP to be delivered to respective destinations Traffic between STAs within the BSS may be sent through the AP, for example, where the source STA may send traffic to the AP and the AP may deliver the traffic to the destination STA. The traffic between STAs within a BSS may be considered and/or referred to as peer-to-peer traffic. The peer-to-peer traffic may be sent between (e.g., directly between) the source and destination STAs with a direct link setup (DLS). In certain representative embodiments, the DLS may use an 802.11e DLS or an 802.11z tunneled DLS (TDLS). A WLAN using an Independent BSS (IBSS) mode may not have an AP, and the STAs (e.g., all of the STAs) within or using the IBSS may communicate directly with each other. The IBSS mode of communication may sometimes be referred to herein as an “ad-hoc” mode of communication.

[0061] When using the 802.11ac infrastructure mode of operation or a similar mode of operations, the AP may transmit a beacon on a fixed channel, such as a primary channel. The primary channel may be a fixed width (e.g., 20 MHz wide bandwidth) or a dynamically set width. The primary channel may be the operating channel of the BSS and may be used by the STAs to establish a connection with the AP. In certain representative embodiments, Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) may be implemented, for example in 802.11 systems. For CSMA/CA, the STAs (e.g., every STA), including the AP, may sense the primary channel. If the primary channel is sensed/detected and/or determined to be busy by a particular STA, the particular STA may back off. One STA (e.g., only one station) may transmit at any given time in a given BSS.

[0062] High Throughput (HT) STAs may use a 40 MHz wide channel for communication, for example, via a combination of the primary 20 MHz channel with an adjacent or nonadjacent 20 MHz channel to form a 40 MHz wide channel.

[0063] Very High Throughput (VHT) STAs may support 20MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, and/or 160 MHz wide channels The 40 MHz, and/or 80 MHz, channels may be formed by combining contiguous 20 MHz channels. A 160 MHz channel may be formed by combining 8 contiguous 20 MHz channels, or by combining two noncontiguous 80 MHz channels, which may be referred to as an 80+80 configuration. For the 80+80 configuration, the data, after channel encoding, may be passed through a segment parser that may divide the data into two streams. Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) processing, and time domain processing, may be done on each stream separately The streams may be mapped on to the two 80 MHz channels, and the data may be transmitted by a transmitting STA. At the receiver of the receiving STA, the above described operation for the 80+80 configuration may be reversed, and the combined data may be sent to the Medium Access Control (MAC).

[0064] Sub 1 GHz modes of operation are supported by 802.11 af and 802.11 ah. The channel operating bandwidths, and carriers, are reduced in 802.11 af and 802.11ah relative to those used in 802.11n, and 802.11ac. 802.11 af supports 5 MHz, 10 MHz, and 20 MHz bandwidths in the TV White Space (TVWS) spectrum, and 802.11 ah supports 1 MHz, 2 MHz, 4 MHz, 8 MHz, and 16 MHz bandwidths using non-TVWS spectrum. According to a representative embodiment, 802.11 ah may support Meter Type Control/Machine- Type Communications (MTC), such as MTC devices in a macro coverage area. MTC devices may have certain capabilities, for example, limited capabilities including support for (e.g , only support for) certain and/or limited bandwidths The MTC devices may include a battery with a battery life above a threshold (e.g., to maintain a very long battery life).

[0065] WLAN systems, which may support multiple channels, and channel bandwidths, such as 802 11 n, 802.11ac, 802.11af, and 802.11 ah, include a channel which may be designated as the primary channel. The primary channel may have a bandwidth equal to the largest common operating bandwidth supported by all STAs in the BSS. The bandwidth of the primary channel may be set and/or limited by a STA, from among all STAs in operating in a BSS, which supports the smallest bandwidth operating mode. In the example of 802.11 ah, the primary channel may be 1 MHz wide for STAs (e.g., MTC type devices) that support (e.g., only support) a 1 MHz mode, even if the AP, and other STAs in the BSS support 2 MHz, 4 MHz, 8 MHz, 16 MHz, and/or other channel bandwidth operating modes. Carrier sensing and/or Network Allocation Vector (NAV) settings may depend on the status of the primary channel. If the primary channel is busy, for example, due to a STA (which supports only a 1 MHz operating mode) transmitting to the AP, all available frequency bands may be considered busy even though a majority of the available frequency bands remains idle.

[0066] In the United States, the available frequency bands, which may be used by 802.11 ah, are from 902 MHz to 928 MHz. In Korea, the available frequency bands are from 917.5 MHz to 923.5 MHz. In Japan, the available frequency bands are from 916.5 MHz to 927.5 MHz. The total bandwidth available for 802.11 ah is 6 MHz to 26 MHz depending on the country code.

[0067] FIG. 1 D is a system diagram illustrating the RAN 104 and the CN 106 according to an embodiment. As noted above, the RAN 104 may employ an NR radio technology to communicate with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c over the air interface 116. The RAN 104 may also be in communication with the CN 106.

[0068] The RAN 104 may include gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c, though it will be appreciated that the RAN 104 may include any number of gNBs while remaining consistent with an embodiment. The gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may each include one or more transceivers for communicating with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c over the air interface 116. In one embodiment, the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may implement MIMO technology. For example, gNBs 180a, 108b may utilize beamforming to transmit signals to and/or receive signals from the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c. Thus, the gNB 180a, for example, may use multiple antennas to transmit wireless signals to, and/or receive wireless signals from, the WTRU 102a. In an embodiment, the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may implement carrier aggregation technology. For example, the gNB 180a may transmit multiple component carriers to the WTRU 102a (not shown). A subset of these component carriers may be on unlicensed spectrum while the remaining component carriers may be on licensed spectrum. In an embodiment, the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may implement Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) technology. For example, WTRU 102a may receive coordinated transmissions from gNB 180a and gNB 180b (and/or gNB 180c). [0069] The WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may communicate with gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c using transmissions associated with a scalable numerology. For example, the OFDM symbol spacing and/or OFDM subcarrier spacing may vary for different transmissions, different cells, and/or different portions of the wireless transmission spectrum. The WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may communicate with gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c using subframe or transmission time intervals (TTIs) of various or scalable lengths (e.g., containing a varying number of OFDM symbols and/or lasting varying lengths of absolute time).

[0070] The gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may be configured to communicate with the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c in a standalone configuration and/or a non-standalone configuration. In the standalone configuration, WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may communicate with gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c without also accessing other RANs (e.g., such as eNode-Bs 160a, 160b, 160c). In the standalone configuration, WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may utilize one or more of gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c as a mobility anchor point. In the standalone configuration, WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may communicate with gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c using signals in an unlicensed band. In a non-standalone configuration WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may communicate with/connect to gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c while also communicating with/connecting to another RAN such as eNode-Bs 160a, 160b, 160c. For example, WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may implement DC principles to communicate with one or more gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c and one or more eNode-Bs 160a, 160b, 160c substantially simultaneously. In the non- standalone configuration, eNode-Bs 160a, 160b, 160c may serve as a mobility anchor for WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c and gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may provide additional coverage and/or throughput for servicing WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c.

[0071] Each of the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may be associated with a particular cell (not shown) and may be configured to handle radio resource management decisions, handover decisions, scheduling of users in the UL and/or DL, support of network slicing, DC, interworking between NR and E-UTRA, routing of user plane data towards User Plane Function (UPF) 184a, 184b, routing of control plane information towards Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) 182a, 182b and the like. As shown in FIG. 1D, the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c may communicate with one another over an Xn interface.

[0072] The CN 106 shown in FIG. 1 D may include at least one AMF 182a, 182b, at least one UPF 184a, 184b, at least one Session Management Function (SMF) 183a, 183b, and possibly a Data Network (DN) 185a, 185b. While the foregoing elements are depicted as part of the CN 106, it will be appreciated that any of these elements may be owned and/or operated by an entity other than the CN operator.

[0073] The AMF 182a, 182b may be connected to one or more of the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c in the RAN 104 via an N2 interface and may serve as a control node. For example, the AMF 182a, 182b may be responsible for authenticating users of the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c, support for network slicing (e.g., handling of different protocol data unit (PDU) sessions with different requirements), selecting a particular SMF 183a, 183b, management of the registration area, termination of non-access stratum (NAS) signaling, mobility management, and the like. Network slicing may be used by the AMF 182a, 182b in order to customize CN support for WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c based on the types of services being utilized WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c. For example, different network slices may be established for different use cases such as services relying on ultra-reliable low latency (URLLC) access, services relying on enhanced massive mobile broadband (eMBB) access, services for MTC access, and the like The AMF 182a, 182b may provide a control plane function for switching between the RAN 104 and other RANs (not shown) that employ other radio technologies, such as LTE, LTE-A, LTE-A Pro, and/or non-3GPP access technologies such as WiFi.

[0074] The SMF 183a, 183b may be connected to an AMF 182a, 182b in the CN 106 via an N11 interface. The SMF 183a, 183b may also be connected to a UPF 184a, 184b in the CN 106 via an N4 interface. The SMF 183a, 183b may select and control the UPF 184a, 184b and configure the routing of traffic through the UPF 184a, 184b. The SMF 183a, 183b may perform other functions, such as managing and allocating UE IP address, managing PDU sessions, controlling policy enforcement and QoS, providing DL data notifications, and the like. A PDU session type may be IP-based, non-IP based, Ethernet-based, and the like.

[0075] The UPF 184a, 184b may be connected to one or more of the gNBs 180a, 180b, 180c in the RAN 104 via an N3 interface, which may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c with access to packet-switched networks, such as the Internet 110, to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c and IP-enabled devices. The UPF 184, 184b may perform other functions, such as routing and forwarding packets, enforcing user plane policies, supporting multi-homed PDU sessions, handling user plane QoS, buffering DL packets, providing mobility anchoring, and the like.

[0076] The CN 106 may facilitate communications with other networks For example, the CN 106 may include, or may communicate with, an IP gateway (e.g., an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) server) that serves as an interface between the CN 106 and the PSTN 108. In addition, the CN 106 may provide the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c with access to the other networks 112, which may include other wired and/or wireless networks that are owned and/or operated by other service providers In one embodiment, the WTRUs 102a, 102b, 102c may be connected to a local DN 185a, 185b through the UPF 184a, 184b via the N3 interface to the UPF 184a, 184b and an N6 interface between the UPF 184a, 184b and the DN 185a, 185b.

[0077] In view of FIGs. 1A-1 D, and the corresponding description of FIGs. 1A-1 D, one or more, or all, of the functions described herein with regard to one or more of: WTRU 102a-d, Base Station 114a-b, eNode-B 160a-c, MME 162, SGW 164, PGW 166, gNB 180a-c, AMF 182a-b, UPF 184a-b, SMF 183a-b, DN 185a-b, and/or any other device(s) described herein, may be performed by one or more emulation devices (not shown). The emulation devices may be one or more devices configured to emulate one or more, or all, of the functions described herein. For example, the emulation devices may be used to test other devices and/or to simulate network and/or WTRU functions.

[0078] The emulation devices may be designed to implement one or more tests of other devices in a lab environment and/or in an operator network environment. For example, the one or more emulation devices may perform the one or more, or all, functions while being fully or partially implemented and/or deployed as part of a wired and/or wireless communication network in order to test other devices within the communication network. The one or more emulation devices may perform the one or more, or all, functions while being temporarily implemented/deployed as part of a wired and/or wireless communication network The emulation device may be directly coupled to another device for purposes of testing and/or performing testing using over-the-air wireless communications.

[0079] The one or more emulation devices may perform the one or more, including all, functions while not being implemented/deployed as part of a wired and/or wireless communication network. For example, the emulation devices may be utilized in a testing scenario in a testing laboratory and/or a non-deployed (e.g., testing) wired and/or wireless communication network in order to implement testing of one or more components. The one or more emulation devices may be test equipment. Direct RF coupling and/or wireless communications via RF circuitry (e.g., which may include one or more antennas) may be used by the emulation devices to transmit and/or receive data.

[0080] The embodiments and examples provided herein include the current state of the MAC Privacy enhancements in a baseline specification, such as IEEE 802.11-2020, and the modified work starting in the IEEE 802.11 bi and IEEE 802.11 bh specifications.

[0081] Several characteristics of IEEE 802.11 can be used to track users. Prior to association to an AP, a STA defines the MAC address that the STA is going to use for the association. Before the MAC Privacy enhancements were added to the base line specification, the STA would use its hard-wired MAC address for all associations. This behavior made trivial the tracking of the STA, since just observing the MAC address in pre-association messages allowed the tracking of the STA. As a result, user privacy may have been diminished. [0082] In addition to the MAC address, there are other mechanisms that can be used to track a STA in IEEE 802.11. For example, each frame in the communication has a sequence number associated with the frame. Even after the change of MAC address, this sequence number can be used to track the STA, since consecutive frames will show consecutive sequence numbers Some other mechanisms are a little bit more complex, such as the OFDM physical layer (PHY) DATA scrambler, which can also be tracked if not reseeded. [0083] The MAC Privacy enhancements introduced in the standard enabled the STA to modify all these parameters in a pre-association state, in such a way that a user cannot be trivially tracked while the STA roams before associating to an AP or while the STA changes network access.

[0084] As indicated in a standard, the MAC Privacy enhancements mitigate this sort of traffic analysis. As a result, a STA can support the ability to periodically and randomly change its MAC addresses, and reset counters and seeds prior to association. While discovering networks, a STA can refrain from gratuitously transmitting Probe Request frames containing service set identifiers (SSIDs) of favored BSS networks.

[0085] Several requirements are used for support of MAC privacy enhancements. For example, the baseline specification defines a set of requirements for applying MAC address randomization, which may include the following. The STA may periodically change its MAC address to a random value while not associated to a BSS. The STA may construct the randomized MAC address from the locally administered address space as defined in IEEE Std 802-2014 and IEEE Std 802c-2017. The non-AP STA may not change its MAC address during a transactional exchange, for example, transmitting Public Action frames for preassociation discovery, or during the creation of state on an AP using pre-association capabilities, for example, robust security network (RSN) pre-authentication or fast BSS transition (FT) over-the-DS. If a non-AP STA starts any transaction that establishes state bound to a MAC address and decides to establish an association or a transaction state with a discovered BSS, it may change the MAC address to the one used to establish this state. State created with an AP using a prior MAC address, for instance, RSN pre-authentication state or FT state established over-the-DS, is bound to the MAC address used when that state was created. Every time a MAC address is changed to a new random value, counters in all sequence number spaces used to identify each frame must be reset. The non-AP STA connecting to an infrastructure BSS may retain a single MAC address for the duration of its connection across an extended service set (ESS).

[0086] Although the MAC Privacy enhancements highly improve the privacy of the user, it has proven to be not enough. Due to this, the IEEE 802.11 created the randomized and changing MAC (RCM) address group to study enhancements to the privacy and, how to improve the operation of networks where MAC address randomization is used.

[0087] The study group has concluded its operation in 2020 and two project authorizations (PARs) have been proposed, including IEEE 802.11 bi: Enhanced Service with Data Privacy Protection, and IEEE 802.11 bh: Operation with Randomized and Changing MAC Addresses. The IEEE 802.11 bi specifies modifications to the IEEE Std 802.11 MAC to include new mechanisms that address and improve user privacy. The IEEE 802.11 bh specifies modifications to the MAC mechanisms to preserve the existing services that might otherwise be restricted in environments where STAs in an ESS use randomized or changing MAC addresses, without affecting user privacy. IEEE 802.11 bh will work on mechanisms to enable session continuity in the absence of any unique MAC address-to-STA mapping.

[0088] The embodiments and examples provided herein aim at tackling the IEEE 802.11 bi work, by providing mechanisms broadening the operation space of the MAC Privacy enhancements In current 802.11 networks, STAs utilize a fixed and unique MAC address for over the air transmissions with the STA’s associated AP. This allows others to track the STA by observing its MAC address in over the air messages, like what was done in pre-association messages. The baseline 802.11 specification does not support the capability of dynamically modifying a STA’s MAC address in the associated state.

[0089] To enhance privacy, the embodiments and examples provided herein address the changes to the MAC data service architecture and counter mode with cipher block chaining message authentication code protocol (CCMP) encapsulation/decapsulation to allow the modification of MAC addresses of the header of MAC protocol data units (MPDUs).

[0090] At least four example embodiments are provided in the following A first embodiment includes modification to the MAC data service architecture to consider the anonymization and de-anonymization of MAC frames, by changing the address used to identify the STA. A second embodiment includes a mechanism to encapsulate the frame using CCMP when the frame is encapsulated just considering the relation between the association and authentication medium access control (aaMAC) address, explained further below herein, and the key used for cyphering. This means, the over the air medium access control (otaMAC) address may be used to compute the nonce. A third embodiment includes a mechanism to encapsulate the frame using CCMP when the aaMAC is considered to compute the nonce. A fourth embodiment includes a mechanism to perform CCMP encapsulation/decapsulation considering multi-link operation (MLO). This mechanism works by using the multi-link device (MLD) MAC as an aaMAC in case of MLO, or using the aaMAC for cases of non-MLO, to compute the nonce and additional authentication data (AAD).

[0091] In embodiment and examples provided herein, the otaMAC may be transmitted or sent over any medium and not solely wirelessly or over the air Further, in embodiment and examples provided herein, the aaMAC may be transmitted or sent over any medium and not solely wirelessly or over the air.

[0092] Embodiments and examples provided herein include architectural modifications to the MAC data service architecture to consider anonymization of frames As used in embodiments and examples provided herein, an otaMAC may be a temporal MAC address used in frames transmitted over the air. An otaMAC may be an otaMACI , otaMAC2, and the like. For individually addressed frames where the To DS bit is set to 1 and the From DS bit is set to 0, the otaMACI of the non-AP STA transmitting the frame is used as the Address 2 while the otaMAC2 of the AP receiving the frame may be used as Address 1. For individually addressed frames where the To DS bit is set to 0 and the From DS bit is set to 1 , the otaMACI of the receiving non-AP STA is transmitted as the Address 1 while the otaMAC2 of the AP transmitting the frame may be used as Address 2. A purpose of the otaMAC is to keep private the aaMAC of the STA and may potentially be changed on a per packet basis.

[0093] As used in embodiments and examples provided herein, an aaMAC may correspond to the MAC address used for the association and authentication process between the AP and the STA. The aaMAC may be the MAC address indexed in the robust security network association (RSNA). Further, note an AP may also use an otaMAC to hide the AP’s identity Moreover, the STA may also use the otaMAC to hide the STA’s identity. This aaMAC address may be used to set up the RSNA, for routing traffic to the STA on the DS network segment, and it is also the MAC address used for mobility related operations such as Fast Transition mechanisms.

[0094] The anonymization of frames depends on the aaMAC and the otaMAC binding. Embodiments and examples provided herein may assume a single RSNA between transmitting and receiving aaMACs, which may be used to encrypt and decrypt frames even if the frames use different transmitting otaMACs and receiving otaMACs, which may also be associated with the aaMAC. [0095] In the case of MLO, the transmitting and receiving MLD MAC addresses may play the same role as the aaMAC for each peer of the communication This approach is shown in the following embodiments and examples.

[0096] Specifically, embodiments and examples are provided herein which include a reference model for MLO. MLO may define a set of procedures allowing communication over multiple links between MLDs. An MLD may manage such communication over multiple links. Communication across links using different frequency bands or channels can occur simultaneously or not depending on the capabilities of both the AP M LD and the non-AP MLD. Such communication may include simultaneous transmit and receive (STR) operation and nonsimultaneous transmit and receive (NSTR) operation.

[0097] The MLO procedures allow a pair of MLDs to discover, synchronize, authenticate, de-authenticate, associate, re-associate, disassociate, and manage links and other resources with each other on any common bands or channels that are supported by both MLDs. Each MLD may have a single MAC-service access point (SAP). Each AP affiliated with an AP MLD has a MAC address different from any other AP affiliated with the AP MLD, and each non-AP STA affiliated with a non-AP MLD has a MAC address different from any other non- AP STA affiliated with the non-AP MLD.

[0098] FIG. 2 is an architectural diagram illustrating an example MLD and an STA communication system. An example of an AP MLD with two affiliated APs, which use Link 1 and Link 2 respectively, is shown in architectural diagram 200. FIG. 2 shows an AP MLD 220 with MLD MAC address M and the MLD lower MAC sublayers of two affiliated APs, AP1 with MAC address w 230 and AP2 with MAC address x 240. Also, the AP MLD 220 may link with a DS 210 via MAC-SAP 225. The AP MLD 220 is associated with a non-AP MLD 270 with MLD MAC address P and the MLD lower MAC sublayers of two affiliated STAs, STA1 with MAC address y 250 and STA2 with MAC address z 260, as shown in FIG. 2. Link 1 is established between AP1 230 and STA1 260 and link 2 is established between AP2240 and STA2 260. Further, the non-AP MLD 270 has MAC- SAP 275. In general, the MAC address of an MLD and the MAC addresses of the STAs affiliated with the MLD are all different. For example, M, P, w, x, y, and z have different values.

[0099] However, the architecture supports an implementation where M could equal either w or x, and where P could equal y or z. In a case of Enhanced Privacy operation in the MLO, the MLD MAC address, which may be M and P in an example shown in FIG. 2, may play the role of aaMAC addresses. Addresses w, x, y and z may be considered otaMAC addresses and may change during the operation of the MLO.

[0100] Embodiments and examples provided herein include modifications to the MAC data service architecture. In an example, when transparent FST is not being used, a MAC data plane architecture may be used, as shown immediately below in FIG 3. When transparent FST is being used, another MAC data plane architecture may be used, as shown further below in FIG. 4.

[0101] FIG. 3 is an architectural diagram illustrating an example of a MAC data plane architecture used when transparent fast session transfer (FST) is not being used In an example shown in architectural diagram 300, processes in the MAC data plane architecture may involve transport of all or part of a MAC service data unit (MSDU). Further, the architecture shown in FIG. 3 may be referred to as a MAC data plane architecture in IEEE 802.11.

[0102] The MAC data plane architecture further includes local higher layer entities 310 and 802.1X port access entity (PAE) 305 in the upper layers. Further, the architecture includes 802.1 AC convergence functions 315, 320 as 802.1 convergence, bridging and related functions

[0103] FIG. 4 is an architectural diagram illustrating an example of a MAC data plane architecture used when transparent FST is being used.. This architecture may be referred to as MAC data plane architecture (transparent FST), such as in IEEE 802.11 .

[0104] Similarly to FIG. 3, in the examples shown in FIG. 4, the MAC data plane architecture further includes local higher layer entities 410 and 802.1X PAE 405 in the upper layers. Further, the architecture includes 802.1AC convergence functions 415, 420 as 802.1 convergence, bridging and related functions

[0105] As shown in FIG. 3A, the role-specific behaviors box 325 may be replaced by one of several example options, depending on the role of the STA, as provided herein. Similarly, in FIG. 4A, role-specific behaviors box 425 may be replaced by one of several example options, depending on the role of the STA, as provided herein. [0106] In an example, during transmission, an MSDU may go through the processes shown in the left-hand side of FIG. 3 and FIG. 4. In an example, MSDU transmission processing may begin with IEEE 802.1X controlled and uncontrolled port filtering, such as in port filtering 330 in FIG. 3B or port filtering 430 in FIG. 4B. When transparent FST is used, an MSDU may then first may go, as shown in FIG. 4, through an additional transparent FST entity 432 that contains a demultiplexing process that forwards the MSDU down to the selected transmitting (Tx) MSDU Rate Limiting process 433 and from there to MAC data plane processing as shown in the left-hand side of FIG. 4, and similar to the processing as shown in the left-hand side of FIG. 3, at the Rx/Tx MSDU rate limiting step 335. Similarly, Rx MSDU Rate Limiting processing 437 may occur as part of the MSDU flow for receiving the MSDU.

[0107] Further, as shown in FIG. 3, A-MSDU aggregation Tx 340 may be performed after the Tx MSDU Rate Limiting process 335 in the MSDU flow for transmitting the MSDU. Correspondingly, A-MSDU deaggregation Rx 340 may be performed before the Tx MSDU Rate Limiting process 335 in the MSDU flow for receiving the MSDU.

[0108] Similarly, as shown in FIG. 4, A-MSDU aggregation Tx 443 may be performed after the Tx MSDU Rate Limiting process 433 in the MSDU flow for transmitting the MSDU. Correspondingly, A-MSDU deaggregation Rx 447 may be performed before the Tx MSDU Rate Limiting process 437 in the MSDU flow for receiving the MSDU.

[0109] Also, as shown in FIG. 3, after A-MSDU aggregation Tx 340 but before enhanced protected (EP) anonymization 360, fragmentation Tx 350 may be performed in the MSDU flow for transmitting the MSDU. Correspondingly, before A-MSDU de-aggregation Rx 340 but after EP de-anonymization 365 and block acknowledgement (ACK) buffering and reordering 355, defragmentation Rx 350 may be performed in the MSDU flow for receiving the MSDU.

[0110] Similarly, as shown in FIG. 4, after A-MSDU aggregation Tx 443 but before MPDU encryption Tx 473, fragmentation Tx 453 may be performed in the MSDU flow for transmitting the MSDU. Correspondingly, before A-MSDU de-aggregation Rx 447 but after MPDU decryption Rx 474 and block ACK buffering and reordering 459, defragmentation Rx 457 may be performed in the MSDU flow for receiving the MSDU.

[0111] At the filtering step 430, IEEE Std 802.1X-2010 may block the MSDU at the Controlled Port before the preceding processing occurs. Otherwise, at some point, the Data frames that contain all or part of the MSDU are queued per access category (AC)Ztraffic stream (TS). In the case of an enhanced privacy MPDU, either EP anonymization block 360, before encryption 370, or EP anonymisation block 375, after encryption 370, may modify the Address 1 (e.g., from AP to non-AP STA transmission) and/or the Address 2 (e.g., from non-AP STA to AP transmission) of the MAC header, replacing the aaMAC by the otaMAC currently in use by the intended receiver of the EP MPDU (Address 1) and/or the current transmitter of the EP MPDU (Address 2). [0112] During reception, a received Data frame may go through the processes shown in the right-hand side of FIG. 3. Then, one or more MSDUs may be delivered to the MAC SAP or, via the distribution system access function (DSAF), to either the DS or an IEEE 802.1Q bridge port. When transparent FST is used, MSDUs originating from different PHY SAPs go, as shown in FIG. 4, through a final step of the transparent FST entity 432 that contains a multiplexing process before delivering the MSDU. The IEEE 802.1X - Controlled/Uncontrolled Ports Filtering 330, 430 discard any received MSDU if the Controlled Port is not enabled and if the MSDU does not represent an IEEE 802.1X frame. In the case of an EP MPDU, the EP deanonymisation block 365 may modify the Address 1 (e.g., from AP to non-AP STA transmission) and/or Address 2 (e.g., from non-AP STA to AP transmission) of the MAC header by replacing the otaMAC with the aaMAC.

[0113] Many of the processes shown in FIG. 3 may also apply to MAC management protocol data unit (MMPDU) flows for the MAC control plane architecture. Further the processes shown at the bottom of FIG. 3 may also apply to Control and Extension frames. For example, MPDU Header + CRC creation (Tx)Zvalidation (Rx) 390 and A-MPDU aggregation (Tx)Zde-aggregation (Rx) 395 may apply to Control and Extension frames. Similarly, as shown in FIG. 4, MPDU Header + CRC creation (Tx)Zvalidation (Rx) 493, 494 and A-MPDU aggregation (Tx)Zde-aggregation (Rx) 496, 497 may apply to Control and Extension frames

[0114] When transparent FST is used, the same security keys and packet number (PN) counters are used by the MAC data plane to encrypt the MPDU prior to and following an FST, and the same security keys and replay counters are used to check the integrity and perform the protection of MPDUs. When nontransparent FST is used, independent RSNAs, security keys, replay counters, and PN counters have to be established for each MAC data plane to be used prior to and following an FST. When transparent FST is used, a single MAC SAP at each peer is presented to the higher layers of that peer for all of the frequency bands/channels that are identified by the same MAC address at that peer. When nontransparent FST is used, different MAC SAPs are presented to higher layers since different MAC addresses are used prior to and following an FST.

[0115] The mechanism to keep in sync the otaMAC and aaMAC between the receiver and transmitter may vary and may include Protected Block acknowledgements (ACKs), Protected Management Frames, Pre-shared lists of MAC addresses or sync information may be appended to data traffic supporting encryption

[0116] The EP anonymization block 360 (in transmission) may be located before the MPDU encryption block 370, therefore modifying the MPDU before undergoing CCMP encapsulation. Additionally or alternatively, in transmission, the EP anonymization block 375 may be located after the MPDU encryption block 370, modifying the frame after the encapsulation is done.

[0117] The EP de-anonymization block 365 (in reception) may be located after the MPDU Decryption and Integrity block 370. Additionally or alternatively, in reception, the EP de-anonymization block 385 may be located (and its function performed), after Address 1 address filtering in block 385. In the latter case, the modification of the MPDU is done before the decryption process is performed.

[0118] Embodiments and examples herein may include a CCMP encapsulation/decapsulation not considering the aaMAC for the nonce and AAD computation. Embodiments and examples herein may consider an MPDU frame arriving at the MPDU Encryption block 370, such as in an example shown in FIG. 3, where the frame undergoes the CCMP cryptographic encapsulation. Examples provided herein may assume two example scenarios for the CCMP encapsulation, as follows. In an example scenario, the MPDU may have already been modified before starting the CC P cryptographic encapsulation, and its addresses may have been modified in order to not transport identifiable information. In an example along these lines, the frame may have already be processed by the EP anonymization block 375. Additionally or alternatively in another example scenario, the MPDU may not have not anonymised previously to the CCMP cryptographic encapsulation and the MPDU may be anonymised after the process is done.

[0119] Both above example scenarios are valid for the remainder of the examples related to this embodiment, as long as the EP anonymisation and de-anonymisation are both performed either before or after encryption/decryption. The main advantage of this example solution is that the standard CCMP mechanism can be used with no modification, by always using the key associated with the aaMAC instead of the key associated with the otaMAC.

[0120] FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a CCMP cryptographic encapsulation process. As shown in an example in block diagram 500, for secure protocol version 0 (PV0) MPDUs, a CCMP may encrypt the Frame Body field of a plaintext MPDU and encapsulate the resulting cipher text using the following steps. In examples used herein, cipher text may be referred to as encrypted data, and the terms may be used interchangeably.

[0121] The process may increment the PN 540, to obtain a fresh nonzero PN for each MPDU, so that the PN never repeats for the same temporal key. Also, retransmitted MPDUs may not be modified on retransmission. Further, the plaintext MPDU may be parsed 510 so that fields in the MPDU may be used in the CCMP cryptographic encapsulation process

[0122] A further step may be to use the fields in the MPDU header to construct the AAD 520 for counter mode with cipher block chaining message authentication code (CBC-MAC) (CCM). The CCM algorithm provides integrity protection for the fields included in the AAD. MPDU header fields that might change when retransmitted are muted by being masked out when calculating the AAD

[0123] Another step may include constructing the CCM nonce block 530. Construction of the CCM nonce 530 may be the same as or similar to the process defined in the standards, such as in sec. 12.52.3.4 (Construct CCM nonce), as one of skill in the art would understand. The CCM nonce 530 may be constructed from the PN, A2, and the priority value of the MPDU where A2 is MPDU Address 2.

[0124] In embodiments and examples provided herein, a nonce may be considered to be a parameter or value that varies with time. For example, a nonce may be a numerical value, used in cryptographic operations associated with a given cryptographic key, that is not to be reused with that key, including all reinitializations of the system through all time.

[0125] If the Type field of the Frame Control field is 10 (Data frame) and there is a QoS Control field present in the MPDU header, the priority value of the MPDU is equal to the value of the traffic identifier (TID) subfield of the QoS Control field (bits 0 to 3 of the QoS Control field). If the Type field of the Frame Control field is 00 (Management frame) and the frame is a quality-of-service for management frame (QMF), the priority value of the MPDU is equal to the value in the access category index (ACI) subfield of the Sequence Number field. Otherwise, the priority value of the MPDU is equal to the fixed value 0

[0126] An additional step may include constructing the CCMP header 560. Construction of the CCMP header 560 may be the same as or similar to the process defined in the standards, such as in sec. 12.5.2.3.5 (Construct CCMP header for PV0 MPDUs), as one of skill in the art would understand. For example, the CCMP header may be constructed 560 from the PN and a Key identity (KeylD).

[0127] In case the MPDU is addressed towards an EP STA with an aaMAC and otaMAC binding in place, a further step may be to use the temporal key associated with the aaMAC, AAD, nonce, and MPDU data to form the cipher text and the encrypted MIC. Otherwise, the process uses the temporal key, AAD, nonce, and MPDU data to form the cipher text and the encrypted MIC. This step may be known as CCM originator processing. This processing may be performed as part of CCM encryption block 550.

[0128] Another step may include forming the encrypted MPDU 570 by combining the original MPDU header, the CCMP header, the encrypted data and the encrypted MIC. Forming the encrypted MPDU 570 may be the same as, or similar to, the process described in the standards, such as in sec. 12.5.2.2 (CCMP MPDU format) , as one of skill in the art would understand. A STA or a WTRU, such as WTRU 102a in FIG. 1 A or FIG. 1D, may then transmit the encrypted MPDU. [0129] The CCM reference describes the processing of the key, nonce, AAD, and data to produce the encrypted output. For example, in the standards, secs. 12.5.2.3.2 (PN processing) to 12.5.2.3.7 (CCM originator processing) may be referred to for details of the creation of the AAD and nonce from the MPDU and the associated MPDU-specific processing, as one of skill in the art would understand.

[0130] FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a CCMP decapsulation process. As shown in an example in block diagram 600, for secure PV0 MPDUs, CCMP may decrypt the Frame Body field of a cipher text MPDU and decapsulate a plaintext MPDU using the following steps. A STA or a WTRU, such as WTRU 102a in FIG. 1A or FIG. 1 D, may receive an encrypted MPDU.

[0131] The encrypted MPDU may then be parsed 610 to construct the AAD 620. Parsing the encrypted MPDU 610 and constructing the AAD 620 may be done the same as or similar to the process in the standards (such as in sec. 12.5.2 3.3 (Construct AAD)), and nonce (such as in sec. 12 5.2.3.4 (Construct CCM nonce)) values, as one of skill in the art would understand. For example, the AAD 620 may be constructed from fields in the MAC header. Also, a nonce may be constructed 630 using the PN, A2 and priority from the parsed encrypted MPDU. Further, the message integrity code (MIC) may be extracted for use in CCM integrity checking, as part of CCM decryption 650.

[0132] In case the MPDU is received at an EP STA with an aaMAC and otaMAC binding in place, CCM recipient processing may use the temporal key associated with the aaMAC, AAD, nonce, encrypted MIC, and MPDU cipher text data to recover the MPDU plaintext data as well as to check the integrity of the AAD and MPDU plaintext data. This processing may be performed as part of CCM decryption block 650. Otherwise, CCM recipient processing, such as in CCM decryption block 650, may use the temporal key, AAD, nonce, encrypted MIC, and MPDU cipher text data to recover the MPDU plaintext data as well as to check the integrity of the AAD and MPDU plaintext data.

[0133] The received MPDU header and the MPDU plaintext data from CCM recipient processing may be concatenated to form a plaintext MPDU 670. At replay check block 680, the decryption processing may prevent replay of MPDUs by validating that the PN in the MPDU is greater than the replay counter maintained for the session, and TID (for Data frames) or ACI (for QMFs). Details of examples of some of the processing used in embodiments and examples herein may be seen in the standards, such as in sec. 12.5.2.4.2 (CCM recipient processing) to sec 12.5.2.4.4 (PN and replay detection), as one of skill in the art would understand.

[0134] When the received frame is a CCMP protected individually addressed robust Management frame or protocol version 1 (PV1) Management frame, contents of the MMPDU body after protection is removed shall be delivered to the station management entity (SME) via the MAC layer management entity (MLME) primitive designated for that MMPDU or PV1 Management frame rather than through the MA-UNITDATA.indication primitive. A method provided in an example shown in FIG. 6 may be used in conjunction with the standard MLD CCMP encapsulation defined in IEEE 802.11 be, as a different mechanism for EP STAs not transmitting in an MLD, as one of skill in the art would understand. [0135] Embodiments and examples herein may include a CCMP encapsulation/decapsulation considering the aaMAC for the nonce and AAD computation. Embodiments and examples herein may consider an MPDU frame arriving at the MPDU Encryption block 370, such as in an example shown in FIG. 3, where the frame undergoes the CCMP cryptographic encapsulation. Examples provided herein may consider a solution that uses the aaMAC as a replacement for the Address 2, ther Address 1, or both while computing the AAD and nonce, together with the key associated with the aaMAC. The benefit of this example solution is that it is independent of where the EP anonymisation/de-anonymisation is performed.

[0136] FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating an example of another CCMP cryptographic encapsulation process. As shown in an example in block diagram 700, for secure PV0 MPDUs, CCMP may encrypt the Frame Body field of a plaintext MPDU and encapsulate the resulting cipher text using the following steps. The process may increment the PN 740, to obtain a fresh nonzero PN for each MPDU, so that the PN never repeats for the same temporal key. Also, retransmitted MPDUs may not be modified on retransmission.

[0137] Also, the plaintext MPDU may be parsed 710 so that fields in the MPDU may be used in the CCMP cryptographic encapsulation process. A further step may be to use the fields in the MPDU header to construct the AAD for CCM 720. The CCM algorithm provides integrity protection for the fields included in the AAD. MPDU header fields that might change when retransmitted are muted by being masked out when calculating the AAD 720 or being set to a known value when calculating the AAD 720 as described in the standards, such as in sec. 12.5.2.3.3 (Construct AAD) , as one of skill in the art would understand. In an example shown in FIG. 7, in addition to using the fields in the MPDU header, the AAD may be calculated 720 using an aaMAC, such as a transmitting aaMAC.

[0138] In case of a secure PV0 MPDU that may be an individually addressed EP Data frame, the process may include constructing the CCM nonce block 730 as defined in the standards, such as in 12.5.2.3.4 (Construct CCM nonce) from the PN, transmitting aaMAC, and the priority value of the MPDU, as one of skill in the art would understand. Otherwise, the process may include constructing the CCM nonce block as defined in sec. 12.5.2 3.4 (Construct CCM nonce) from the PN, A2, and the priority value of the MPDU where A2 is MPDU Address 2, as one of skill in the art would understand. If the Type field of the Frame Control field is 10 (Data frame) and there is a QoS Control field present in the MPDU header, the priority value of the MPDU is equal to the value of the TID subfield of the QoS Control field (bits 0 to 3 of the QoS Control field) If the Type field of the Frame Control field is 00 (Management frame) and the frame is a QMF, the priority value of the MPDU is equal to the value in the ACI subfield of the Sequence Number field. Otherwise, the priority value of the MPDU is equal to the fixed value 0.

[0139] A further step may include constructing the CCMP header 760 as defined in the standards, such as in sec. 12.5.23.5 (Construct CCMP header for PV0 MPDUs), as one of skill in the art would understand. For example, the CCMP header may be constructed 760 using the PN and the Key I D associated with the aaMAC [0140] In case the MPDU is addressed towards an EP STA with an aaMAC and otaMAC binding in place, a further step may be to use the temporal key associated to the aaMAC, AAD, nonce, and MPDU data to form the cipher text and the encrypted MIC. Otherwise, Use the temporal key, AAD, nonce, and MPDU data to form the cipher text and the encrypted MIC. This step may be known as CCM originator processing. This processing may be performed as part of CCM encryption block 750

[0141] Another step may include forming the encrypted MPDU 770 by combining the original MPDU header, the CCMP header, the encrypted data and the encrypted MIC. The process of forming the encrypted MPDU 770 may be the same as or similar to the process described in the standards, such as in sec. 12.5.2.2 (CCMP MPDU format), as one of skill in the art would understand.

[0142] The CCM reference describes the processing of the key, nonce, AAD, and data to produce the encrypted output. For example, in the standards, sec. 12.5.2 3.2 (PN processing) to sec. 12 5.2.3.7 (CCM originator processing) may be referred to for details of the creation of the AAD and nonce from the MPDU and the associated MPDU-specific processing, as one of skill in the art would understand A STA may then transmit the encrypted MPDU.

[0143] FIG. 8 is a format diagram illustrating an example of AAD construction for PVO MPDUs. For PVO MPDUs, the format of the AAD is shown in an example in format diagram 800. The length of the AAD for PVO may vary depending on the presence or absence of the QoS control (QC) and A4 fields, and is shown in T able 1.

AAD length for PVO MPDUs

Table 1

[0144] The AAD may be constructed from the MPDU header. The AAD includes neither the Duration/ID field nor the HT Control field because the contents of these fields might change during normal operation. For example, the contents of one or both of these fields might change due to a rate change preceding retransmission. The HT Control field might also be inserted or removed during normal operation For example, the field may be inserted or removed during retransmission of an A-MPDU where the original A-MPDU included a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) request (MRQ) that has already generated a response For similar reasons, several subfields in the Frame Control field are masked out. For PVO MPDUs, AAD construction may be performed as follows.

[0145] A frame control (FC) field 820 may include: the 3 least significant bits (LSBs) of the Subtype subfield (bits 4 5 6) in a Data frame masked out (Bit 7 may not be modified); a retry subfield (bit 11) masked out; a power management subfield (bit 12) masked out; a more data subfield (bit 13) masked out; and a protected frame subfield (bit 14) not modified (left as-is at 1) with a high-throughput control (HTC) subfield (bit 15). The HTC subfield may include the following properties: Masked out in all Data frames containing a QoS Control field; and not modified otherwise Other subfields may not be modified.

[0146] If the To DS bit or the From DS bit subfields in the MAC header of the MPDU are not both equal to 0 or 1 , and the MPDU may be an EP MPDU, then the A1 field 830 may be set to the aaMAC associated with the otaMAC indicated in the MPDU Address 1 field Otherwise the A1 field 830 is set to the MPDU Address 1 field.

[0147] If the To DS bit or the From DS bit subfields in the MAC header of the MPDU are not both equal to 0 or 1 , and the MPDU may be an EP MPDU, then the A2 field 840 may be set to the aaMAC associated with the otaMAC indicated in the MPDU Address 2 field Otherwise the A2 field 840 is set to the MPDU Address 2 field.

[0148] The A3 field 850 may be an MPDU Address 3 field. Further, the sequence control (SC) field 860 may be an MPDU SC field, with the Sequence Number subfield (bits 4-15 of the Sequence Control field) masked out. The Fragment Number subfield may not be modified.

[0149] An A4 field 870 may be an MPDU Address field, if present.

[0150] A QC field 880 may be an MDPU QoS Control field which contains the MSDU priority, if present. The QC TID may be used in the construction of the AAD. When in a non-directional multi-gigabit DMG BSS, if both the STA and its peer have their signaling and payload protected aggregate MSDU (SPP A-MSDU) Capable (M57) subfields (see the standards, such as sec. 9.4.2.241 (RSNXE)) equal to 1 , the A-MSDU Present field may also be used in the construction of the AAD, as one of skill in the art would understand. When in a DMG BSS, the A-MSDU Present field and A-MSDU Type field may also be used in the construction of the AAD. The remaining QC fields may not be used and may be masked out for the AAD calculation (for a non-DMG BSS, bits 4 to 6, bits 8 to 15, and bit 7 when either the STA or its peer has the SPP A-MSDU Capable field equal to 0; for a DMG BSS, bits 4 to 6 and bits 9 to 15). When in a DMG BSS, the A-MSDU Present bit 7 and A-MSDU Type bit 8 may be used in the construction of the AAD, and the remaining QC fields may be masked out for the AAD calculation (bits 4 to 6, bits 9 to 15)

[0151] FIG. 9 a field diagram illustrating an example of a CCM nonce. Examples herein may include a process to construct the CCM nonce, as shown in block 530 in FIG. 5, block 630 in FIG. 6, block 730 in FIG. 7, block 1130 in FIG. 11 , block 1230 in FIG. 12, step 1340 in FIG. 13 or block 1430 in FIG. 14.

[0152] FIG. 10 is a field diagram illustrating an example of a CCM nonce flags field. In an example, the CCM nonce flags field of field diagram 1000, may be used in the CCM nonce flags field 930 in field diagram 900.

[0153] In a further example, the Priority subfield 1020 of FIG. 10 may be set to the priority value of the MPDU (such as in the standards, such as in sec. 12.5.2.3.1 (General)), as one of skill in the art would understand Further, the Management subfield 1030 may be set to 1 if the MPDU is a Management frame and management frame protection is negotiated; otherwise, it may be set to 0.

[0154] The PV1 subfield 1040 may be set to 1 for a PV1 frame; otherwise, the PV1 subfield 1040 may be set to 0. The Zeros 1050 subfield shall be set to 0.

[0155] The STA MAC Address Identified By A2 subfield 940 of FIG. 9 may contain the following If the To DS bit may or the From DS bit subfields in the MAC header of the MPDU are not both equal to 0 or 1, and the MPDU may be an EP MPDU, then the STA MAC Address Identified by A2 subfield 940 may be set to the aaMAC associated with the otaMAC indicated in the MPDU Address 2 field Otherwise, the STA MAC Address Identified by A2 subfield 940 may be set to the Address 2 field from the MAC header for PV0 MPDUs and the MAC address identified by the A2 field in the MAC header for PV1 MPDUs (such as in the standards, such as in sec. 9.8.3.2 (Address fields)), as one of skill in the art would understand.

[0156] The PN subfield 950 may contain the packet number, with PN0 in the last octet of the subfield.

[0157] A transmitter may not use an MSDU or A-MSDU priority if this would cause the total number of priorities used during the lifetime of the source address (SA) to exceed the number of replay counters supported by the receiver (for a pairwise SA) or all the receivers (for a group SA) for that SA The transmitter shall not reorder CCMP protected frames that are transmitted to the same receiver address (RA) within a replay counter, but may reorder frames across replay counters. One possible reason for reordering frames is the MSDU or A-MSDU priority.

[0158] The transmitter may preserve the order of protected robust Management frames that are transmitted to the same destination address (DA) without the QMF service. When the QMF service is used, the transmitter shall not reorder robust individually addressed QMFs (IQMFs) within an AC when the frames are transmitted to the same RA.

[0159] A CCMP protected individually addressed robust Management frame shall be protected using the same temporal key (TK) as a Data frame.

[0160] FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating another example of another CCMP decapsulation process. As shown in an example in block diagram 1100, for secure PV0 MPDUs, CCMP may decrypt the Frame Body field of a cipher text MPDU and decapsulate a plaintext MPDU using the following steps. In an example, a STA may receive an encrypted MPDU.

[0161] The encrypted MPDU may be parsed 1110 to construct the AAD 1120, which may be done the same as or similar to a process in the standards (such as in sec. 12.5.2.3.3 (Construct AAD)) and nonce (such as in sec. 12.5.2.3.4 (Construct CCM nonce)) values, as one of skill in the art would understand. In addition, if the To DS and From DS bits of the MAC header may not be both set to 1 orO, and the MPDU may be an individually addressed EP MPDU, then the aaMAC associated with the otaMAC (that may be included either in A1 or A2) may be passed to construct the AAD 1120 (see 12.5.2.3.3 (Construct AAD)) and nonce values 1130 (see 12.5 2.3.4 (Construct CCM nonce)), as one of skill in the art would understand. Accordingly, the AAD may be constructed 1120 from the header of the parsed MPDU and the aaMAC. Further, the nonce may be constructed 1130 from the A2 field, the Priority field, the PN field, and the aaMAC. The MIC may be extracted for use in CCM integrity checking, such as in the CCM decryption processing 1150.

[0162] In case the MPDU is received at an EP STA with an aaMAC and otaMAC binding in place, CCM recipient processing may use the temporal key associated with the aaMAC, the AAD, the nonce, encrypted MIC, and MPDU cipher text data to recover the MPDU plaintext data as well as to check the integrity of the AAD and MPDU plaintext data, as part of the CCM decryption processing 1150. Otherwise, CCM recipient processing 1150 uses the temporal key, AAD, nonce, encrypted MIC, and MPDU cipher text data to recover the MPDU plaintext data as well as to check the integrity of the AAD and MPDU plaintext data.

[0163] The received MPDU header and the MPDU plaintext data from CCM recipient processing are concatenated to form a plaintext MPDU 1170. At replay check block 1180, the decryption processing prevents replay of MPDUs by validating that the PN in the MPDU is greater than the replay counter maintained for the session, and TID (for Data frames) or ACI (for QMFs). Details of examples of some of the processing used in embodiments and examples here may be seen in the standards, such as in sec. 12 5.2.4.2 (CCM recipient processing) to sec 12.5.2.4.4 (PN and replay detection) , as one of skill in the art would understand.

[0164] When the received frame is a CCMP protected individually addressed robust Management frame or PV1 Management frame, contents of the MMPDU body after protection is removed shall be delivered to the SME via the MLME primitive designated for that MMPDU or PV1 Management frame rather than through the MA-UNITDATA.indication primitive, in an example solution.

[0165] Embodiments and examples herein may include a CCMP encapsulation/decapsulation for MLO and non-MLO operation, considering the aaMAC for the nonce and AAD computation. The embodiments and examples herein may consider an MPDU frame arriving at the MPDU Encryption block 370, as in, for example, FIG. 3, where the frame undergoes the CCMP cryptographic encapsulation. The proposed mechanism integrates in a single CCMP encapsulation operation for MLO and non-MLO.

[0166] In embodiments and examples herein, the AP MLD MAC address and the non-AP MLD MAC address may be considered as the aaMAC for the AP and non-AP sides of the communication Further, embodiments and examples herein include a solution that uses the aaMAC as a replacement for the Address 2, the Address 1 , or both while computing the AAD and nonce, together with the key associated to the aaMAC. The benefit of this solution includes that it is independent of where the EP anonymisation/de-anonymisation is performed.

[0167] Embodiments and examples herein refer to frames exchange between STAs which are operating under a MAC masquerading agreement and/or operating using IEEE 802.11 bi/bh enhancements as Enhance Protected (EP) frames. In an example, STA operating under a MAC masquerading agreement may be able change over the air MAC addresses while associated. Further, embodiments and examples herein include as a baseline specification IEEE 802.11be/D2.3, as one of skill in the art would understand. [0168] FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a further CCMP cryptographic encapsulation process. As shown in an example in block diagram 1200, for secure PVO MPDUs, a CCMP cryptographic encapsulation process may encrypt the Frame Body field of a plaintext MPDU 1210 and encapsulates the resulting cipher text using the following steps. The process may increment the PN 1240, to obtain a fresh PN for each MPDU, so that the PN never repeats for the same temporal key. Also, retransmitted MPDUs may not be modified on retransmission For MLO, MPDUs may not be encapsulated with a new PN when retransmitted on another link.

[0169] Further, the process may use the fields in the MPDU header to construct the AAD 1220 for CCM. The CCM algorithm provides integrity protection for the fields included in the AAD. MPDU header fields that may change when retransmitted are muted by being masked to 0 or being set to a known value when calculating the AAD 1220. In an example, the process may construct the AAD 1220 from fields in the MPDU header, and from the MLD MAC address. Additionally or alternatively, the process may construct the AAD 1220 from fields in the MPDU header, and from the aa MAC address.

[0170] In case of a secure PVO MPDU that is an individually addressed Data frame to be encrypted by an MLD, the process may construct the CCM nonce block 1230 from the PN, transmitting MLD MAC address (in case the transmitting STA is using EP, the transmitting MLD MAC address corresponds to the aaMAC of the transmitting STA), and the priority value of the MPDU. In case of a secure PVO MPDU that may be an individually addressed EP Data frame, the process may construct the CCM nonce block 1230 from the PN, transmitting aaMAC, and the priority value of the MPDU. Otherwise, the process may construct the CCM nonce block 1230 from the PN, A2, and the priority value of the MPDU where A2 is MPDU Address 2. If the Type field of the Frame Control field is 10 (Data frame) and there is a QoS Control field present in the MPDU header, the priority value of the MPDU is equal to the value of the TID subfield of the QoS Control field (bits 0 to 3 of the QoS Control field). If the Type field of the Frame Control field is 00 (Management frame) and the frame is a QMF, the priority value of the MPDU is equal to the value in the ACI subfield of the Sequence Number field. Otherwise, the priority value of the MPDU is equal to the fixed value 0

[0171] For MLO, AAD and CCM Nonce construction for Management frames, the process may follow procedures known to those in the art and may use the MPDU header fields to be transmitted over the affiliated STA link. Further, the process may construct the CCMP header 1260 using the PN and the KeylD The KeylD may be associated with the MLD MAC address, the aaMAC or both

[0172] Also, the process may use one or more of the temporal key, AAD, nonce, and MPDU data to form the cipher text and the encrypted MIC. This step may be known as CCM originator processing and may be performed at the CCM encryption block 1250.

[0173] For EP frames, the SME may keep an RSN association between the AP and non-AP STAs’ aaMAC addresses. The temporal key is therefore associated with the pair of aaMAC addresses used in the communication. Further, the process may form the encrypted MPDU 1270 by combining the original MPDU header, the COMP header, the encrypted data and the encrypted MIC. In an example, the process may form the encrypted MPDU 1270 by combining the original MPDU header, the CCMP header, the cipher text and the encrypted MIC.

[0174] For PVO MPDUs, the format of the AAD is shown in FIG. 8. The length of the AAD for PVO may vary depending on the presence or absence of the QC and A4 fields and is shown in Table 1 , AAD length for PVO MPDUs.

[0175] The AAD may be constructed from the MPDU header. The AAD may include neither the Duration/ID field nor the HT Control field because the contents of these fields might change during normal operation. For example, these fields might change during normal operation due to a rate change preceding retransmission. The HT Control field might also be inserted or removed during normal operation. In an example, the HT Control field might also be inserted or removed during retransmission of an A-MPDU where the original A-MPDU included an MRQ that has already generated a response. For similar reasons, several subfields in the Frame Control field may be masked to 0. For PVO MPDUs, AAD construction may performed as follows.

[0176] An FC field, such as FC field 820, may be an MPDU FC field and may include: a subtype subfield (bits 4 5 6) in a Data frame masked to 0; a retry subfield (bit 11) masked to 0; a power management subfield (bit 12) masked to 0; a more data subfield (bit 13) masked to 0; a protected frame subfield (bit 14) always set to 1 ; and a +HTC subfield (bit 15). The +HTC subfield may be set as follows: masked to 0 in all Data frames containing a QoS Control field, and unmasked otherwise. Other subfields of the FC field may not be modified. [0177] Field A1, such as field A1 830, may be set as follows. If the To DS or From DS subfields in the MAC header of the MPDU are not both equal to 0, and the MPDU is an individually addressed Data frame between an AP MLD and a non-AP MLD associated with the AP MLD (EP or not EP), then A1 is set to the MLD MAC address of the intended receiver. If the To DS or From DS subfields in the MAC header of the MPDU are not both equal to 0 or 1 , and the MPDU is an individually addressed EP Data frame, then A1 may be set to the aaMAC of the intended receiver. Otherwise, A1 may be set to the MPDU Address 1 field

[0178] Field A2, such as field A2840, may be set as follows. If the To DS or From DS subfields in the MAC header of the MPDU are not both equal to 0, and the MPDU is an individually addressed Data frame between an AP MLD and a non-AP MLD associated with the AP MLD (EP or not EP), then A2 is set to the MLD MAC address of the transmitting MLD If the To DS or From DS subfields in the MAC header of the MPDU are not both equal to 0 or 1 , and the MPDU is an individually addressed EP Data frame, then A2 may be set to the aaMAC of the intended transmitter. Otherwise, A2 may be set to the MPDU Address 2 field.

[0179] If dot11 MultiLinkActivated is true, the MPDU Address 3 field, such as field A3850 is the BSS identity (BSSID) and the MPDU is an individually addressed Data frame between an AP MLD and a non-AP MLD associated with the AP MLD. Accordingly, A3 may be set to the MLD MAC address of the AP MLD Otherwise, A3 may be set to the MPDU Address 3 field. [0180] An SC field, such as SC field 860, may be an MPDU SC field with the Sequence Number subfield (bits 4-15 of the Sequence Control field) masked to 0. The Fragment Number subfield may not be modified.

[0181] An A4 field, if present, such as A4 field 870, may be set as follows: if dot1 IMultiLinkActivated is true, MPDU Address 4 field is a BSSID, and the MPDU is an individually addressed Data frame between an AP MLD and a non-AP MLD associated with the AP MLD. Accordingly, A4 is set to the MLD MAC address of the AP MLD. Otherwise, A4, if present, is set to the MPDU Address 4 field.

[0182] A QC field, such as QC field 880, may contain the MSDU priority, if present. The QC TID may be used in the construction of the AAD. When in a non-DMG BSS and both the STA and its peer have their SPP A-MSDU Capable fields equal to 1, bit 7 (the A-MSDU Present field) may be used in the construction of the AAD. The remaining QC fields may be masked to 0 for the AAD calculation (bits 4 to 6, bits 8 to 15, and bit 7 when either the STA or its peer has the SPP A-MSDU Capable field equal to 0). When in a DMG BSS, the A- MSDU Present bit 7 and A-MSDU Type bit 8 may be used in the construction of the AAD, and the remaining QC fields may be masked to 0 for the AAD calculation (bits 4 to 6, bits 9 to 15).

[0183] In an example shown in FIGs. 9 and 10, the priority subfield 1020, of the CCM nonce flags field 930 of the CCM nonce, may be set to the priority value of the MPDU. The management subfield 1030 may be set to 1 if the MPDU is a Management frame and management frame protection is negotiated; otherwise, it may be set to 0.

[0184] The PV1 subfield 1040 may be set to 1 for a PV1 frame; otherwise, it may be set to 0. The Zeros subfield 1050 may be set to 0. If the To DS or From DS subfields in the MAC header of the MPDU are not both equal to 0, and the MPDU is an individually addressed Data frame between an AP MLD and a non-AP MLD associated with the AP MLD, then the STA MAC Address identified by A2 subfield may contain the MLD MAC address of the transmitting MLD.

[0185] If the To DS or From DS subfields in the MAC header of the MPDU are not both equal to 0 or 1 , and the MPDU may be an EP MPDU, then the STA MAC Address identified by A2 subfield 940 may be set to the aaMAC of the transmitting STA. Otherwise, the STA MAC Address Identified By A2 subfield 940 may contain the Address 2 field from the MAC header for PV0 MPDUs and the MAC address identified by the A2 field in the MAC header for PV1 MPDUs. The PN subfield 950 may contain the packet number, with PN0 in the last octet of the subfield.

[0186] A transmitter may not use an MSDU or A-MSDU priority if this would cause the total number of priorities used during the lifetime of the SA to exceed the number of replay counters supported by the receiver (for a pairwise SA) or all the receivers (for a group SA) for that SA. The transmitter may not reorder CCMP protected frames that are transmitted to the same RA within a replay counter, but may reorder frames across replay counters. One possible reason for reordering frames is the MSDU or A-MSDU priority.

[0187] The transmitter shall preserve the order of protected robust Management frames that are transmitted to the same DA without the QMF service. When the QMF service is used, the transmitter shall not reorder robust IQMFs within an AC when the frames are transmitted to the same RA. A CCMP protected individually addressed robust Management frame may be protected using the same TK as a Data frame.

[0188] FIG. 13 is a flow chart diagram of a CCMP encapsulation process As shown in an example in flow chart diagram 1300, a STA may increment a PN 1320. Further, the STA may construct AAD based on a plain text MPDU header and an aaMAC address 1330. Also, the STA may construct a nonce based on the aaMAC address, the PN, and a priority value of the MPDU 1340 In addition, the STA may form an encrypted MIC based on the ADD and the nonce 1350. Additionally, the STA may form an encrypted MPDU based on the MPDU header, a cipher text, the encrypted MIC and a CCMP header 1360. The STA may then transmit the encrypted MDPU 1370. Moreover, the STA may be in non-MLO communication with an AP. In an example, the STA may transmit the encrypted MDPU to the AP.

[0189] In a further example, the aaMAC address may be different from an MLD MAC address. In another example, the aaMAC may be a securely exchanged MAC address. In an additional example, the aaMAC may be a MAC address used for the association and authentication process between the AP and the STA. Also, the aaMAC may be indexed in an RSNA, and the aaMAC address may be used to set up the RSNA, in an example. Further, the aaMAC may be different from an otaMAC address, and the otaMAC may be used during an association process, in an example. In a further example, the aaMAC address may be used for routing traffic to the STA on a DS network segment. In another example, the aaMAC address may be used for mobility related operations. In an additional example, the aaMAC address may be used for fast transition mechanisms.

[0190] In another example, the CCMP header may be constructed based on the PN and a key identity KeylD associated with the aaMAC address. In a further example, the cipher text may be formed based on the AAD, the nonce, data of the plain text MDPU and a TK associated with the aaMAC address. Moreover, the encrypted MIC may be formed further based on the data of the plain text MDPU and the TK associated with the aaMAC address.

[0191] FIG. 14 a block diagram illustrating an example of a further CCMP decapsulation process. As shown in an example in block diagram 1400, for secure PV0 MPDUs, a CCMP may decrypt the Frame Body field of a cipher text MPDU and decapsulates a plaintext MPDU using the following steps. In an example, a STA may receive an encrypted MPDU.

[0192] The encrypted MPDU may be parsed 1410 to construct the AAD 1420 and nonce values 1430. In case the To DS or From DS subfields in the MAC header of the MPDU are not both equal to 0, and the MPDU is an individually addressed Data frame transmitted by a STA affiliated with an MLD, then the transmitter and receiver MLD MAC addresses may be passed to construct the AAD 1420 and nonce values 1430. In case the To DS and From DS bits of the MAC header may not be both set to 1 orO, and the MPDU may be an individually addressed EP MPDU, then the transmitting and receiving aaMACs may be passed to construct the AAD 1420 and nonce values 1430. [0193] In an example, the ADD 1420 may be constructed from fields in the MAC header and the MLD MAC address. Additionally or alternatively, the ADD 1420 may be constructed from fields in the MAC header and the aaMAC address.

[0194] Further, the nonce may be constructed 1430 from the A2, priority, PN and the MLD MAC address. Additionally or alternatively, the nonce may be constructed 1430 from the A2, priority, PN and the aaMAC address.

[0195] The MIC may be extracted for use in CCM integrity checking. CCM recipient processing may use the temporal key, AAD, nonce, encrypted MIC, and MPDU cipher text data to recover the MPDU plaintext data as well as to check the integrity of the AAD and MPDU plaintext data. This processing may be performed as part of CCM decryption block 1450.

[0196] For EP frames, the SME may keep an RSNA association between the AP and non-AP STAs’ aaMAC addresses. The temporal key may be therefore associated with the pair of aaMAC addresses used in the communication.

[0197] The received MPDU header and the MPDU plaintext data from CCM recipient processing, at CCM decryption block 1450, may be concatenated to form a plaintext MPDU 1470. At replay check 1480, the decryption processing may prevent replay of MPDUs by validating that the PN in the MPDU is greater than the replay counter maintained for the session, and TID (for Data frames) or ACI (for QMFs).

[0198] When the received frame is a CCMP protected individually addressed robust Management frame or PV1 Management frame, contents of the MMPDU body after protection is removed may be delivered to the SME via the MLME primitive designated for that MMPDU or PV1 Management frame rather than through the MA-UNITDATA indication primitive, in an example solution.

[0199] Although features and elements are described above in particular combinations, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that each feature or element can be used alone or in any combination with the other features and elements. Further, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the features and elements described above include means for implementing the methods described herein. In addition, the methods described herein may be implemented in a computer program, software, or firmware incorporated in a computer-readable medium for execution by a computer or processor. Examples of computer-readable media include electronic signals (transmitted over wired or wireless connections) and computer-readable storage media. Examples of computer-readable storage media include, but are not limited to, a read only memory (ROM), a random access memory (RAM), a register, cache memory, semiconductor memory devices, magnetic media such as internal hard disks and removable disks, magneto-optical media, and optical media such as CD- ROM disks, and digital versatile disks (DVDs). A processor in association with software may be used to implement a radio frequency transceiver for use in a WTRU, UE, terminal, base station, RNC, MLD, STA, AP, relay node, mesh node, customer premises equipment (CPE), fixed wireless access (FWA) device, industrial device, or any host computer.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed:

1. A method for use in a station (STA), in non-multi-link operation (MLO) communication with an access point (AP), the method comprising: incrementing a packet number (PN); constructing additional authentication data (AAD) based on a plain text medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (MPDU) header and an association and authentication MAC (aaMAC) address; constructing a nonce based on the aaMAC address, the PN, and a priority value of the MPDU; forming an encrypted MPDU based on the MPDU header, a cipher text, an encrypted message integrity code (MIC) and a counter mode with cipher block chaining message authentication code protocol (CCMP) header, wherein the encrypted MIC is formed based on the ADD and the nonce; and transmitting the encrypted MPDU.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the aaMAC address is different from a multi-link device (MLD) MAC address.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the aaMAC address is a securely exchanged MAC address.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the aaMAC address is a MAC address used for the association and authentication process between the AP and the STA.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the aaMAC address is indexed in a robust security network association (RSNA), and wherein the aaMAC address is used to set up the RSNA.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the aaMAC address is different from an over the air MAC (otaMAC) address, wherein the otaMAC is used during an association process.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the aaMAC address is used for routing traffic to the STA on a distribution system (DS) network segment.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the aaMAC address is used for mobility related operations.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the aaMAC address is used for fast transition mechanisms.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the CCMP header is constructed based on the PN and a key identity (KeylD) associated with the aaMAC address.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cipher text is formed based on the AAD, the nonce, data of the plain text MDPU and a temporal key (TK) associated with the aaMAC address; and wherein the encrypted MIC is formed further based on the data of the plain text MDPU and the TK associated with the aaMAC address.

12. A station (STA), in non-multi-link operation (MLO) communication with an access point (AP), the STA comprising: a transceiver; and a processor operatively coupled to the transceiver; wherein: the processor is configured to increment a packet number (PN); the processor is configured to construct additional authentication data (AAD) based on a plain text medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (MPDU) header and an association and authentication MAC (aaMAC) address; the processor is configured to construct a nonce based on the aaMAC address, the PN, and a priority value of the MPDU; the processor is configured to form an encrypted MPDU based on the MPDU header, a cipher text, an encrypted message integrity code (MIC) and a counter mode with cipher block chaining message authentication code protocol (CCMP) header, wherein the encrypted MIC is formed based on the AAD and the nonce; and the transceiver and the processor are configured to transmit the encrypted MPDU.

13. The STA of claim 12, wherein the aaMAC address is different from a multi-link device (MLD) MAC address

14. The STA of claim 12, wherein the aaMAC address is a securely exchanged MAC address.

15. The STA of claim 12, wherein the aaMAC address is a MAC address used for the association and authentication process between the AP and the STA.

16. The STA of claim 12, wherein the aaMAC address is indexed in a robust security network association (RSNA), and wherein the aaMAC address is used to set up the RSNA.

17. The STA of claim 12, wherein the aaMAC address is different from an over the air MAC (otaMAC) address, wherein the otaMAC is used during an association process.

18. The STA of claim 12, wherein the aaMAC address is used for routing traffic to the STA on a distribution system (DS) network segment.

19. The STA of claim 12, wherein the aaMAC address is used for mobility related operations.

20. The STA of claim 19, wherein the aaMAC address is used for fast transition mechanisms

21. The STA of claim 12, wherein the CCMP header is constructed based on the PN and a key identity (KeylD) associated with the aaMAC address.

22. The STA of claim 12, wherein the cipher text is formed based on the AAD, the nonce, data of the plain text MDPU and a temporal key (TK) associated with the aaMAC address; and wherein the encrypted MIC is formed further based on the data of the plain text MDPU and the TK associated with the aaMAC address.