SaTC: CORE: Small: Towards Untraceable Communications in a Ubiquitous Environment with RF Fingerprint Anonymization

The explosive growth of ubiquitous communications and computing imposes unprecedented challenges on system security and user privacy. These challenges motivate the development of anonymous communications, which aim at guaranteeing reliable communications between legitimate users while simultaneously concealing information regarding the identity or activities of a given user.

This project seeks to advance the theory and practice of anonymous communications by systematically exploring and gaining a better understanding of communication radio frequency (RF) fingerprints, which are unique hardware imperfections inherent in all communication devices. RF fingerprints can be used to reveal the identify or track the activities of communication users, thus they are critical for preserving the security and privacy of communication systems.

The project's novelties mainly reside in achieving anonymous communications by concealing RF fingerprints. Such a hardware-based approach is drastically different from existing technologies that solely rely on software-implemented encryption or authentication, while revealing little or no attention to important identity-revealing hardware characteristics.

The project's broader significance and importance are improving the security and privacy in emerging applications like smart grids, Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous driving, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Results obtained from the project have the potential in reshaping the way individuals interact and communicate in the digital age, and they hold the promise to enhance privacy and empower individuals to engage in open discourses.

This project advances the theory and practice of anonymous communications with RF fingerprints through three research thrusts: (i) developing statistical models and identification methods for RF fingerprints, (ii) achieving untraceable communications by concealing the identity of RF devices, and (iii) developing a large-scale RF fingerprint dataset with a large number of heterogeneous wireless devices under various wireless standards. Results from the proposed research will be validated by using extensive data collected from a new RF fingerprint test-bed with real-world wireless devices.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.