WILMINGTON, Del., June 30, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- InterDigital, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDCC), a mobile research and development company, today announced its participation in the successful completion of trials by IETF and IEEE 802 focusing on Wi-Fi privacy.

The IEEE 802 Privacy Executive Committee Study Group identified privacy issues related to the use of globally-unique media access control (MAC) addresses in over-the-air communications like Wi-Fi, and the risk that long-lived identifiers such as MAC addresses pose to the exposure of users to unauthorized tracking.  Juan Carlos Zuniga, Principal Engineer at InterDigital, serves as chair of the study group, which proposed a solution to this privacy issue and embarked on experiments to study the implications of the solution. Three experimental trials were successfully completed at the IEEE 802 plenary meeting in Berlin on March 8-14, 2015, the IETF 92 meeting held March 22-27, 2015 in Dallas, and the IETF 91 meeting held November 9-14, 2014 in Honolulu. 

The study group was formed in July 2014 as part of a joint collaboration between the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the IEEE 802 Standards Committee. The goal of the study group is to assess privacy issues related to IEEE 802 technologies and create the base to develop privacy guidelines for protocol developers.

“Living as we do in a world where individuals get tremendous value out of seamless, constant connectivity, it is crucial for technologies to mitigate the privacy risk that such constant connectivity entails. These successful trials show just one way to improve Internet privacy for nontechnical users. The IEEE 802 in collaboration with IETF will continue searching for different ways to improve Internet technologies to protect users against privacy risks,” said Mr. Zuniga.

To learn more on the efforts of the IEEE 802 Privacy Executive Committee Study Group, please click here for an IETF Journal article written by Mr. Zuniga. 

About InterDigital®

InterDigital develops technologies that are at the core of mobile devices, networks, and services worldwide. We solve many of the industry's most critical and complex technical challenges, inventing solutions for more efficient broadband networks and a richer multimedia experience years ahead of market deployment. InterDigital has licenses and strategic relationships with many of the world's leading wireless companies. Founded in 1972, InterDigital is listed on NASDAQ and is included in the S&P MidCap 400® index.

InterDigital is a registered trademark of InterDigital, Inc.  IEEE and 802 are registered trademarks of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.  IETF is a registered trademark of the Internet Engineering Task Force.

For more information, visit: www.interdigital.com.

Contact:
Patrick Van de Wille
Email: patrick.vandewille@interdigital.com 
+1 (858) 210-4814

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