Chattering Laptops (original) (raw)

Anonymity and Untraceability in Mobile Networks

1995

User mobility is a feature that raises many new security-related issues and concerns. One of them is the disclosure of a mobile user's identity during the authentication process, or other procedures speci c to mobile networks. Such disclosure allows an unauthorized third-party to track the mobile user's movements and current whereabouts. Depending on the context, access to any information related to a mobile user's location or activity without his consent can be a serious violation of his privacy. This new issue might be seen as a con icting requirement with respect to authentication: anonymity requires hiding the user's identity while authentication requires the user's identity to be revealed in order to be proved. What is needed is a single mechanism reconciling both authentication and privacy of a mobile user's identity. The basic solution to this problem is the use of aliases. Aliases insure anonymity by hiding the user's identity as well as his relationship with domain authorities. In this paper, we present a classi cation scheme to identify the di erent pieces of information which should be protected from legitimate network entities and unauthorized third parties. We then present an e cient method for the computation of aliases and apply it to a new set of inter-domain authentication protocols. We demonstrate that these protocols can be designed to meet various degrees of privacy requirements. In designing these protocols, we try to avoid the drawbacks of authentication protocols in existing mobile network architectures such as CDPD and GSM.

Untraceability in Mobile Networks

1995

User mobility is a feature that raises many new security-related issues and concerns. One of them is the disclosure of a mobile user's real identity during the authentication process, or other procedures specific to mobile networks. Such disclosure allows an unauthorized third-party to track the mobile user's movements and current whereabouts. Depending on the context, access to any information related to a mobile user's location without his consent can be a serious violation of his privacy. This new issue might be seen as a conflicting requirement with respect to authentication: untraceability requires hiding the user's identity while authentication requires the user's identity to be revealed in order to be proved. What is needed is a single mechanism reconciling both authentication and privacy of a mobile user's identification. The basic solution to this problem is the use of aliases. Aliases insure untraceability by hiding the user's real identi...

Quantifying and Preventing Privacy Threats in Wireless Link Layer Protocols

2007

The proliferation of mobile wireless devices enables or magnifies several privacy threats that traditional link layer confidentiality mechanisms, such as payload encryption, do not protect against: user tracking, profiling, and traffic analysis. For example, it is well known that the exposure of long-lived, unique device addresses can be used to track users over time. Although these addresses can easily be changed, more subtle features exposed in encrypted link layer traffic can be used to identify and profile users as well. These features, which we call implicit identifiers, include identifiers used for service discovery, characteristics that encryption does not obscure, and protocol information in unencrypted headers. These features can not be easily removed without loss of crucial network functionality. This thesis quantifies privacy threats posed by these features and presents solutions that prevent their exposure to third parties. In doing so, we make three primary contributions: (1) We identify implicit identifiers that are exposed in wireless link layer protocols such as 802.11 and quantify how accurately they can be used to identify and track users. (2) An important class of implicit identifiers are those exposed by service discovery and rendezvous protocols. We have designed and implemented a mechanism that enhances existing discovery protocols so that they are anonymous-that is, so that they only expose identities to authorized parties. (3) A second important class of implicit identifiers are those exposed by analyzing exposed characteristics of encrypted messages, e.g., message sizes and inter-arrival times. We propose a rule-based system that enables efficient masking of sensitive traffic characteristics as they are discovered, without modifying applications.

Analysis of Security and Privacy in Mobile IP

1996

this paper we present a possible extension of the proposed Mobile IP and routeoptimization protocols, the Non-Disclosure Method (NDM). It prevents the tracking ofuser movements by third parties and gives mobile users control over the revelation oftheir location information, according to their personal security demands

Development of an algorithm to protect user communication devices against data leaks

Eastern-European Journal of Enterprise Technologies, 2021

In order to identify ways used to collect data from user communication devices, an analysis of the interaction between DNS customers and the Internet name domain space has been carried out. It has been established that the communication device's DNS traffic is logged by the DNS servers of the provider, which poses a threat to the privacy of users. A comprehensive algorithm of protection against the collection of user data, consisting of two modules, has been developed and tested. The first module makes it possible to redirect the communication device's DNS traffic through DNS proxy servers with a predefined anonymity class based on the proposed multitest. To ensure a smooth and sustainable connection, the module automatically connects to a DNS proxy server that has minimal response time from those available in the compiled list. The second module blocks the acquisition of data collected by the developers of the software installed on the user's communication device, as we...

Improving security and privacy in current mobile systems

2017

As has been widely discussed, the GSM system only offers unilateral authentication of the mobile phone to the network; this limitation permits a range of attacks. While adding support for mutual authentication would be highly beneficial, changing the way GSM serving networks operate is not practical. The 3G and 4G mobile systems rectify the GSM weakness by providing mutual authentication between phone and network, and significantly improve their security properties by comparison with 2G (GSM). However, significant shortcomings remain with respect to user privacy, most notably the decades-old privacy problem of disclosure of the permanent subscriber identity (IMSI), a problem arising in all generations of mobile networks and that makes IMSI catchers a real threat. Although a number of possible modifications to 2G, 3G and 4G protocols have been proposed designed to provide greater user privacy, they all require significant alterations to the existing deployed infrastructures, which ar...

Privacy Leakage in Mobile Computing: Tools, Methods, and Characteristics

2014

The number of smartphones, tablets, sensors, and connected wearable devices are rapidly increasing. Today, in many parts of the globe, the penetration of mobile computers has overtaken the number of traditional personal computers. This trend and the always-on nature of these devices have resulted in increasing concerns over the intrusive nature of these devices and the privacy risks that they impose on users or those associated with them. In this paper, we survey the current state of the art on mobile computing research, focusing on privacy risks and data leakage effects. We then discuss a number of methods, recommendations, and ongoing research in limiting the privacy leakages and associated risks by mobile computing.

Information Security Issues in Mobile Computing

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 1995

During the last decade the decrease in the size of computing machinery, coupled with the increase in their computing power has lend to the development of the concept of mobile computing. Effects of this new vision is currently evident in the flourishing numbers of mobile telephones and portable computing units. In this paper we investigate some issues concerning the security of mobile computing systems, within the framework of the categories of mobility, disconnection, data access modes and scale of operation (lmielinski & Badrinath, 1993). In contrast to previous works which concentrate on security in wireless communications, we focus on the security of interactions ~hich are built upon the underlying wireless communications medium. Some conclusions are presented on the future directions for security research in mobile computing systems.