Paper accepted at top conference SIGMETRICS’20

The paper

• Stay Connected, Leave no Trace: Enhancing Security and Privacy in WiFi via Obfuscating Radiometric Fingerprints
  by Luis F. Abanto-Leon (Technical University of Darmstadt), Andreas Bäuml (Technical University of Darmstadt), Gek Hong (Allyson) Sim (Technical University of Darmstadt), Matthias Hollick (Technical University of Darmstadt), Arash Asadi (Technical University of Darmstadt)

has been accepted for publication at the top conference ACM SIGMETRICS 2021.

Abstract of the paper

Imagine sending a letter to a friend. After writing the letter, you enclose it, seal the envelope, and drop it in the mailbox. As part of the process, you unintendedly leave your fingerprint along with your “message”. Similar to us, every WiFi-enabled device leaves a unique signature on the transmitted signals. These signatures—referred to as radiometric fingerprints—are inherent to every WiFi device’s radio transmitters and are produced due to unavoidable manufacturing imprecisions. Unfortunately, an adversary can extract such fingerprints, thus exposing WiFi users to various privacy and security issues.

In our recent ACM Sigmetrics’21 article, we propose RF-Veil, which hides the radiometric fingerprints from unwanted eavesdroppers. Going back to our analogy, getting rid of our fingerprints is not an option. A practical solution would be wearing a “glove” that protects your identity while allowing you to verify yourself in a legitimate situation. In RF-Veil, we create that “glove” for your WiFi device without impacting the performance. If you are curious to know more about RF-Veil, you can find more information at: https://cutt.ly/Oha8rcD