Mobile de-whitening

A method comprising:

• receiving, with a peripheral device, a message packet from a portable device, the message packet including an authenticated packet with a de-whitened tone byte inserted therein, the portable device having generated the message packet by (i) generating first message authentication code (MAC) bytes based on a shared secret key, (ii) generating first nonce bytes, (iii) generating the authenticated packet based on the first MAC bytes, the first nonce bytes, and a message byte, and (iv) generating and inserting the de-whitened tone byte into the authenticated packet based on the shared secret key;
• generating, with the peripheral device, second MAC bytes based on the shared secret key;
• generating, with the peripheral device, second nonce bytes;
• comparing, with the peripheral device, the first MAC bytes with the second MAC bytes and the first nonce bytes with the second nonce bytes;
• validating, with the peripheral device, the message packet in response to determining that the first MAC bytes match the second MAC bytes and that the first nonce bytes match the second nonce bytes;
• generating, with the peripheral device, a reconstructed message packet in response to validating the message packet by removing the de-whitened tone byte from the authenticated packet, the reconstructed message packet including the first MAC bytes, the first nonce bytes, and the message byte;
• and
• communicating, with the peripheral device, the reconstructed message packet to a communication gateway;
• wherein the communication gateway is configured to establish a communication link between the portable device and the communication gateway in response to receiving the reconstructed message packet from the peripheral device.