SECURE SMS MESSAGING

• US 20150289116A1
• Filed: 04/03/2014
• Published: 10/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/03/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Original Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Inventors: Lei, Yao Hui, Peirce, Kenneth L., Pal, Dipankar, Heines, Richard
• Granted Patent: US 9,706,372 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/84 Vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/006 involving public key infrastructure [PKI] trust models network architecture or network communication protocol for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3242 involving keyed hash functions, e.g. message authentication codes [MACs], CBC-MAC or HMAC
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/033 of the user plane, e.g. user's traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]

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.

Claims

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 one or more SMS messages;

(b) configuring an encrypted payload of each of the one or more 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.

2. 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; and

(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 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.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the payloads of each of the plurality of SMS messages are encrypted according to a public key infrastructure (PKI), using a pre-shared key (PSK), or both.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the payloads further carry a cyclic redundancy check (CRC), wherein each of the plurality of configured SMS messages further carry a micro-certificate.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein an auxiliary portion of the plurality of SMS messages carry an identical MAC value.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

(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 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.

7. The method of claim 6, 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.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the payload further carries a cyclic redundancy check (CRC), wherein the single SMS message further carries a micro-certificate carrying a public key associated with the private key.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein an auxiliary portion of the single SMS message carries a MAC value.

10. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

(d) when the determined data quantity is null being associated with zero PDPs,

(d1) configuring a single SMS message to carry zero PDPs,

wherein an SMS header of the single SMS message carries;

a message index indicating it is the only SMS message of a sequence;

wherein a payload of the SMS message carries;

an internal header indicating zero PDPs; and

(d2) transmitting from the sender the configured single SMS message.

11. The method of claim 10, 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.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the payload further carries a cyclic redundancy check (CRC), wherein the single SMS message further carries a micro-certificate.

13. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

(e) receiving the at least one SMS message at a recipient; and

(f) when a plurality of SMS messages are received, arranging the plurality of SMS messages according to their message index.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the at least one SMS message carries a message authentication code (MAC) value, and further comprising:

after step (e), performing step (g) validating the MAC value of the at least one SMS message, wherein if the MAC value cannot be validated, performing step (h) discarding the at least one SMS message.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein step (e) further comprises receiving a plurality of MAC values each associated with a plurality of SMS messages, wherein step (h) further comprises discarding the plurality of SMS messages if the MAC values are not identical and if at least one MAC value is not validated.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

step (i) discarding the plurality of SMS messages if any of the SMS headers of the SMS messages cannot be validated.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the sender is a call center and the recipient is a vehicle telematics unit, or wherein the recipient is the call center and the sender is the vehicle telematics unit.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

(j) transmitting from the recipient to the sender at least one response SMS message including the one or more PDPs, wherein the at least one response SMS message includes each of the one or more PDPs of the received SMS message.