Secure SMS messaging

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9706372-B2
Application number	US-201414244525-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 3, 2014
Priority date	Apr 3, 2014
Publication date	Jul 11, 2017
Grant date	Jul 11, 2017

Abstract

A mobile vehicle communications system and a method of sending one or more secure short message service (SMS) messages using that system. The method includes the steps of: (a) determining at a sender a data quantity associated with zero or more proprietary data parcels (PDPs) to send within one or more SMS messages; (b) configuring an encrypted payload of each of the one or more configured SMS messages to carry the total number of PDPs, wherein when the size of the payload would result in an SMS message exceeding 140 bytes, the configuring step includes configuring a plurality of SMS messages to carry the payload; and (c) transmitting from the mobile originated device one or more configured SMS messages.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method of sending one or more secure short message service (SMS) messages, comprising the steps of:
(a) determining at a sender a data quantity associated with zero or more proprietary data parcels (PDPs) to send within at least one SMS message;
(b) when the determined data quantity of one or more PDPs is greater than a predetermined maximum for a single SMS message,
(b1) configuring a plurality of SMS messages to carry the data of the one or more PDPs,
wherein an SMS header of each of the plurality of SMS messages carry a message index (MI) associated with a concatenated sequence of the SMS messages indicating an order within the sequence;
wherein a payload of a first indexed SMS message carries an internal payload header indicating the total number of PDPs and the length of each of the PDPs,
wherein a payload of the other indexed SMS messages carry at least a portion of the PDP data; and
(b2) transmitting from the sender the plurality of configured SMS messages; and
(c) when the determined data quantity of one or more PDPs is less than or equal to a predetermined maximum for a single SMS message,
(c1) configuring a single SMS message to carry the data of one or more PDPs, wherein an SMS header of the single SMS message carries a message index (MI) indicating it is the only SMS message of a sequence,
wherein a payload of the single SMS message carries an internal payload header indicating the total number of PDPs and the length of each of the PDPs; and
(c2) transmitting from the sender the configured single SMS message,
wherein the payload of the single SMS message is encrypted according to a public key infrastructure (PKI), using a pre-shared key (PSK), or both, wherein the payload of the configured single SMS message of step (c2) further carries a cyclic redundancy check (CRC), wherein the single SMS message further carries a micro-certificate carrying a public key associated with a private key.

2. A method of sending one or more secure short message service (SMS) messages, comprising the steps of:
determining at a sender how many SMS messages are to be used to transmit two or more proprietary data parcels (PDPs) to a recipient, wherein the determination includes determining that one or more SMS messages are to be used to transmit the two or more PDPs and wherein the determination is at least partially based on a total data size of the two or more PDPs to be carried collectively by the one or more SMS messages;
prior to transmitting the one or more SMS messages, configuring the one or more SMS messages, wherein the configuring step includes:
when it is determined that there is more than one SMS message to be used to transmit the two or more PDPs, configuring each of the SMS messages to include an SMS header having indexing information, wherein the indexing information enables the recipient to re-order the SMS messages;
configuring a first SMS message of the one or more SMS messages to include an internal header within a payload of the first SMS message, wherein the internal header includes information associated with a quantity representing the number of PDPs that are carried by the one or more SMS messages and a data length of each of the two or more PDPs; and
configuring each of the one or more SMS messages to include a cyclical redundancy check (CRC) in the payload; and
transmitting from the sender to the recipient the two or more PDPs using the one or more SMS messages;
wherein the payload of at least the first SMS message is encrypted according to a public key infrastructure (PKI), using a pre-shared key (PSK), or both.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein, when it is determined that there is only one SMS message to be used to transmit the two or more PDPs, then configuring the single SMS messages to include a micro-certificate carrying a public key associated with a private key.

4. A method of sending one or more secure short message service (SMS) messages, comprising the steps of:
evaluating one or more proprietary data parcels (PDPs) to determine how many SMS message(s) are to be used to transmit the one or more PDPs, wherein the evaluation is based on a total size of the one or more PDPs;
in response to the evaluating step:
configuring each of the one or more SMS messages to include an SMS header and a payload;

when it is determined that there is more than one SMS message to be used to transmit the one or more PDPs, configuring each of the SMS headers to include indexing information enabling the recipient of the SMS messages to order the SMS messages and to determine whether all of the SMS messages were received;
when it is determined that there is more than one SMS message to be used to transmit two or more PDPs, configuring a first SMS message of the SMS messages to include an internal header that comprises information representing the total number of PDPs and a data size for each of the PDPs;
prior to transmitting the one or more SMS messages, encrypting each of the payloads of the one or more SMS messages according to a public key infrastructure (PKI), using a pre-shared key (PSK), or both; and
transmitting the one or more SMS messages from a sender to a recipient.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the sender is a vehicle call center and the recipient is a telematics unit in a vehicle.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein at least one of the one or more proprietary data parcels includes a command from the call center to the vehicle to perform a vehicle operation or function.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the encrypting step further comprises: determining a different message authentication code (MAC) for each of the one or more SMS messages, and wherein the configuring step further comprises: determining a data size of the SMS payload for each of the one or more SMS messages in consideration of a data size of each respective SMS header and a data size of each respective MAC.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein each of the one or more SMS messages transmitted to the recipient includes the MAC associated with the encryption of the respective SMS payload.

9. The method of claim 4 , wherein the encrypting step further comprises: determining a single message authentication code (MAC) associated with each of the proprietary data parcels of the one or more SMS messages, and wherein the configuring step further comprises: determining a data size of the SMS payload for each of the one or more SMS messages in consideration of a data size of each respective SMS header and a data size of the MAC.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein each of the one or more SMS messages transmitted to the recipient includes the MAC.

11. The method of claim 4 , wherein the SMS payload of each of the one or more SMS messages includes a cyclic redundancy check (CRC).

12. The method of claim 4 , wherein the SMS payload of each of the one or more SMS messages includes a micro-certificate.

13. The method of claim 4 , further comprising receiving at least one of the one or more SMS messages at the recipient, wherein the recipient ignores all of the one or more SMS messages when: the recipient does not receive all of the one or more SMS messages before a time of expiration, the recipient is unable to validate a message authentication code (MAC) associated with each of the one or more SMS messages, or the recipient is unable to validate that the MACs associated with each of the one or more plurality of SMS messages is identical.

Assignees

• Gen Motors Llc

Inventors

• Lei Yao Hui
• Heines Richard
• Peirce Kenneth L
• Pal Dipankar

Classifications

• H04L67/12

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• H04L2209/24

  Key scheduling, i.e. generating round keys or sub-keys for block encryption · CPC title

• H04W12/04

  Key management, e.g. using generic bootstrapping architecture [GBA] · CPC title

• H04L2209/84

  Vehicles · CPC title

• H04W4/046

  Electricity · mapped topic