1.1 Glossary

This document uses the following terms:

authentication: The ability of one entity to determine the identity of another entity.

base64 encoding: A binary-to-text encoding scheme whereby an arbitrary sequence of bytes is converted to a sequence of printable ASCII characters, as described in [RFC4648].

big-endian: Multiple-byte values that are byte-ordered with the most significant byte stored in the memory location with the lowest address.

binary large object (BLOB): A discrete packet of data that is stored in a database and is treated as a sequence of uninterpreted bytes.

Bluetooth (BT): A wireless technology standard which is managed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group and that is used for exchanging data over short distances between mobile and fixed devices.

ChannelID: An 8-byte value used in message exchanges to identify the channel on which the next message is published. It is generated by using cryptographically secure pseudo-random numbers to make the chance of collision in the 64-bit address space unlikely.

domain: A set of users and computers sharing a common namespace and management infrastructure. At least one computer member of the set has to act as a domain controller (DC) and host a member list that identifies all members of the domain, as well as optionally hosting the Active Directory service. The domain controller provides authentication of members, creating a unit of trust for its members. Each domain has an identifier that is shared among its members. For more information, see [MS-AUTHSOD] section 1.1.1.5 and [MS-ADTS].

Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH): A key agreement protocol that allows two parties, each having an elliptic-curve public–private key pair, to establish a shared secret over an insecure channel.

encryption: In cryptography, the process of obscuring information to make it unreadable without special knowledge.

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4): An Internet protocol that has 32-bit source and destination addresses. IPv4 is the predecessor of IPv6.

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6): A revised version of the Internet Protocol (IP) designed to address growth on the Internet. Improvements include a 128-bit IP address size, expanded routing capabilities, and support for authentication and privacy.

KeepAlive timer: A method of tracking the currency of an instance of Session Factory or OOB Connector object in the abstract data model. The timer is started when an object instance is created, and it keeps track of the number of references to that instance by protocol clients. When the number of client references reaches zero, the object is deleted.

key: In cryptography, a generic term used to refer to cryptographic data that is used to initialize a cryptographic algorithm. Keys are also sometimes referred to as keying material.

key derivation: The act of deriving a cryptographic key from another value (for example, the derivation of a cryptographic key from a password).

key exchange: A synonym for key establishment. The procedure that results in shared secret keying material among different parties. Key agreement and key transport are two forms of key exchange. For more information, see [CRYPTO] section 1.11, [SP800-56A] section 3.1, and [IEEE1363] section 3.

little-endian: Multiple-byte values that are byte-ordered with the least significant byte stored in the memory location with the lowest address.

Media Access Control (MAC) address: A hardware address provided by the network interface vendor that uniquely identifies each interface on a physical network for communication with other interfaces, as specified in [IEEE802.3]. It is used by the media access control sublayer of the data link layer of a network connection.

Near Field Communication (NFC): An international standard for short-range wireless, contactless connectivity that provides intuitive, simple, and safe communication between electronic devices. NFC is the technology on smartphones that makes proximity scenarios possible. For example, it allows a user to wave the smartphone over a NFC-compatible device to send information without needing to touch the devices together or go through multiple steps setting up a connection.

network layer (L3): The third layer in the ISO/OSI reference model that provides the ability to transfer variable length data sequences from a source host on one network to a destination host on a different network while maintaining the quality of service (QoS) requested by the transport layer.

organizationally unique identifier (OUI): A unique 24-bit string that uniquely identifies a vendor, manufacturer, or organization on a worldwide l basis, as specified in [IEEE-OUI]. The OUI is used to help distinguish both physical devices and software, such as a network protocol, that belong to one entity from those that belong to another.

out-of-band (OOB): A process for authenticating a user where two communication channels are used simultaneously between two devices or roles. A cellular network is an example of a channel that is commonly used for performing out-of-band authentication.

peer-to-peer: A server-less networking technology that allows several participating network devices to share resources and communicate directly with each other.

private key: One of a pair of keys used in public-key cryptography. The private key is kept secret and is used to decrypt data that has been encrypted with the corresponding public key. For an introduction to this concept, see [CRYPTO] section 1.8 and [IEEE1363] section 3.1.

pub/sub: Refers to publication/subscription, a design model in which publishers send notification of events that are received by subscribers, which have registered for those events.

public key: One of a pair of keys used in public-key cryptography. The public key is distributed freely and published as part of a digital certificate. For an introduction to this concept, see [CRYPTO] section 1.8 and [IEEE1363] section 3.1.

publication: A message placed on the underlying transport along with a type identifier. Multiple individual publication messages may be placed on the transport with the same type identifier. Peers receive a published message if they have previously subscribed to it by type.

radio frequency communications (RFCOMM): A protocol that provides serial port emulation of EIA-232 (formerly RS-232) control signals over the Bluetooth baseband layer. RFCOMM is used to create a virtual serial data stream to enable binary data transport.

subscription: A registration performed by a subscriber to specify a requirement to receive events, future messages, or historical data.

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP): A protocol used with the Internet Protocol (IP) to send data in the form of message units between computers over the Internet. TCP handles keeping track of the individual units of data (called packets) that a message is divided into for efficient routing through the Internet.

Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): A string that identifies a resource. The URI is an addressing mechanism defined in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax [RFC3986].

universally unique identifier (UUID): A 128-bit value. UUIDs can be used for multiple purposes, from tagging objects with an extremely short lifetime, to reliably identifying very persistent objects in cross-process communication such as client and server interfaces, manager entry-point vectors, and RPC objects. UUIDs are highly likely to be unique. UUIDs are also known as globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) and these terms are used interchangeably in the Microsoft protocol technical documents (TDs). Interchanging the usage of these terms does not imply or require a specific algorithm or mechanism to generate the UUID. Specifically, the use of this term does not imply or require that the algorithms described in [RFC4122] or [C706] must be used for generating the UUID.

UTF-8: A byte-oriented standard for encoding Unicode characters, defined in the Unicode standard. Unless specified otherwise, this term refers to the UTF-8 encoding form specified in [UNICODE5.0.0/2007] section 3.9.

Wi-Fi Direct (WFD): A standard that allows Wi-Fi devices to connect to each other without requiring a wireless access point (WAP). This standard enables WFD devices to transfer data directly among each other resulting in significant reductions in setup.

winning peer: A peer that has the preference to be the server in future message exchanges. This term applies to the relevant message exchange between the two peers.

MAY, SHOULD, MUST, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT: These terms (in all caps) are used as defined in [RFC2119]. All statements of optional behavior use either MAY, SHOULD, or SHOULD NOT.