ISG

The objective of this research is to build new measurement-based methods for secure secret key establishment between two wireless devices, without ever communicating the secret key, using diverse physical characteristics of the wireless medium, notably an innovative measurement called temporal link signatures, and using device mobility.

Location-based services are becoming an important part of our everyday lives. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project survey, 47% of current cell-phone users prefer to have mapping features on their phones. Similar trends can be shown for other portable devices such as car navigation systems, PDA's and computer laptops. However, recent concerns over how such services can jeopardize a user's private information resulted in the newly coined term "location privacy." Several breaches of subscriber's privacy by stalking their locations have been reported.

The popularity of personal gadgets opens up many new services for ordinary users. Many everyday usage scenarios involve two or more devices "working together". (Emerging scenarios are beginning to involve sensors and personal RFID tags.) Before working together, devices must be securely "paired" to enable secure and private communication. However, the human-imperceptible nature of wireless communication prompts the very real threat of Man-in-the-Middle (MiTM) attacks. Another challenge arises due to the lack of a global security infrastructure.

The inability of programmers to write vulnerability free code is the most pressing problem in practical computer systems security. The most serious class of vulnerabilities is memory vulnerabilities, which generally allow an attacker to subvert the program's control flow. In response to this problem, generic mitigations have been widely deployed that, through changes to the operating system and processor, seek to make it impossible for attackers to exploit errors in programs.

The explosive growth of mobile devices coupled with near universal connectivity creates new opportunities for community based mobile social networking applications. In this class of applications each user in a community contributes their knowledge about their surrounding environments and the collective knowledge is used by the group members for a personal or social benefit. The foundational underpinning of all mobile social networks is a participant's desire to take advantage of the collective knowledge gained from other users in the community.