Redefining the Trust Model for the Internet of Everything in the 6G era

Despite decades of evolution, the fundamental trust model of mobile networks remains unchanged. As a result, each mobile device has its own identity chip with network access credentials to be able to use mobile services such as voice telephony or Internet access. The upcoming Internet of Everything (IoE) revolution leads to a massive increase in connected devices and challenges the scalability of this approach. We propose to simplify trust establishment and show how the identity chips storing the credentials can be eliminated for most devices. The key idea is a new trust model in which an authorized subscriber securely delegates trust to other devices such that these other devices can claim legitimacy to connect to the mobile network. Our analysis shows that this proposal significantly reduces costs compared to the 5G trust model.