Networking, wireless

group_project

Visible to the public Collaborative Research: Preserving User Privacy in Server-driven Dynamic Spectrum Access System

Submitted by Yaling Yang on Mon, 12/18/2017 - 4:58pm

Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) technique enables wireless devices, called secondary users (SUs), to use spectrum that are allocated to licensed incumbent users (IUs) as long as they do not interfere with IUs' operation. It has been widely accepted as a crucial solution to mitigate the spectrum scarcity problem for wireless communications. As a key form of DSA, regulators have proposed to release more Federal spectrum for sharing with commercial wireless users, under the umbrella of a spectrum access system (SAS) database to govern the spectrum sharing between IUs and SUs.

group_project

Visible to the public CIF: Small: Collaborative Research: Security in Dynamic Environments: Harvesting Network Randomness and Diversity

Submitted by Shuangqing Wei on Mon, 12/18/2017 - 3:35pm

The project aims at quantifying a general network's inner potential for supporting various forms of security by achieving secret common randomness between pairs or groups of its nodes. Statistical and computational secrecy measures are being considered against a general passive adversary. Common-randomness-achieving protocols are classified into two groups: culture-building and crowd-shielding. The former achieves common randomness between nodes situated in close proximity of each other, from correlated observations of specific (natural or induced) network phenomena.

group_project

Visible to the public CAREER: Inference-Based Adaptation Techniques for Next Generation Jamming and Anti-Jamming Capabilities

Submitted by tague on Mon, 12/18/2017 - 2:53pm

Continual advances in wireless communication technology offer additional protections against interference and jamming, but these same advances unfortunately also enable stronger attacks. Observant attackers can achieve significant gains by incorporating knowledge of the network under attack, and jammers can consider various metrics, including attack impact, energy efficiency, and stealth. Moreover, attackers can continually adapt parameters and behaviors to compensate for system dynamics, thwart detection, and save valuable resources.

Outcomes Report URL: 
https://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_win...
group_project

Visible to the public  TWC: Small: Collaborative: Characterizing the Security Limitations of Accessing the Mobile Web

Submitted by Patrick Traynor on Tue, 12/05/2017 - 10:15pm

Mobile browsers are beginning to serve as critical enablers of modern computing. With a combination of rich features that rival their desktop counterparts and strong security mechanisms such as TLS/SSL, these mobile browsers are becoming the basis of many other mobile apps. Unfortunately, the security guarantees provided by mobile browsers and the risks associated with today?s mobile web have not been evaluated in great detail.

Outcomes Report URL: 
https://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_win...
group_project

Visible to the public TWC: Medium: Leakage of Communications Signatures: Analysis of Eavesdropping Attacks and Proactive Countermeasures

Submitted by Marwan Krunz on Tue, 11/14/2017 - 12:43pm

As society continues to depend on the rapidly expanding wireless ecosystem, we are challenged with serious threats related to user privacy, data confidentiality, and critical system availability. A significant portion of these threats is attributed to the broadcast nature of wireless transmissions. Using commodity radio hardware, unauthorized parties can easily eavesdrop on over-the-air transmissions and breach the privacy of communicating users by tracking their whereabouts and movements, and inferring their associations, health state, and preferences.

group_project

Visible to the public TWC: Small: Secure Near Field Communications between Mobile Devices

Submitted by Kai Zeng on Tue, 11/14/2017 - 12:20pm

By the end of this decade, it is estimated that Internet of Things (IoT) could connect as many as 50 billion devices. Near Field Communication (NFC) is considered as a key enabler of IoT. Many useful applications are supported by NFC, including contactless payment, identification, authentication, file exchange, and eHealthcare, etc. However, securing NFC between mobile devices faces great challenges mainly because of severe resource constraints on NFC devices, NFC systems deployed without security, and sophisticated adversaries.

group_project

Visible to the public TWC: Medium: Collaborative: Hiding Hay in a Haystack: Integrating Censorship Resistance into the Mainstream Internet

Submitted by Joan Feigenbaum on Tue, 11/14/2017 - 11:44am

Freedom and openness of the Internet are under threat. Government censors in non-democratic countries are deploying network filters to block sources of uncensored information, suppress dissent, and prevent citizens from using the Internet to exercise their human rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

group_project

Visible to the public TWC: Medium: Collaborative: Development and Evaluation of Next Generation Homomorphic Encryption Schemes

Submitted by Jeffrey Hoffstein on Tue, 11/14/2017 - 10:43am

Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) is a promising new technology that enables an untrusted party to efficiently compute directly on ciphertexts. For instance, with FHE a cloud server without access to the user's encrypted content can still provide text search services. An efficient FHE scheme would significantly improve the security of sensitive user data stored and processed on cloud servers. Significant progress has been made in bringing FHE proposals closer to practice.

group_project

Visible to the public TWC: TTP Option: Large: Collaborative: Internet-Wide Vulnerability Measurement, Assessment, and Notification

Submitted by Alex Halderman on Mon, 11/13/2017 - 4:31pm

This project aims to reduce the impact of software vulnerabilities in Internet-connected systems by developing data-driven techniques for vulnerability measurement, assessment, and notification. Recent advances in Internet-wide scanning make it possible to conduct network surveys of the full public IPv4 address space in minutes.

group_project

Visible to the public TWC: Medium: Collaborative: Strengthening Wi-Fi Network Wide

Submitted by Guevara Noubir on Mon, 11/13/2017 - 8:46am

Wi-Fi has emerged as the technology of choice for Internet access. Thus, virtually every smartphone or tablet is now equipped with a Wi-Fi card. Concurrently, and as a means to maximize spectral efficiency, Wi-Fi radios are becoming increasingly complex and sensitive to wireless channel conditions. The prevalence of Wi-Fi networks, along with their adaptive behaviors, makes them an ideal target for denial of service attacks at a large, infrastructure level.