2009 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Physical Layer Attacks on Unlinkability in Wireless LANs
Authors : Kevin Bauer, Damon McCoy, Ben Greenstein, Dirk Grunwald, Douglas Sicker
Published in: Privacy Enhancing Technologies
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.
Select sections of text to find matching patents with Artificial Intelligence. powered by
Select sections of text to find additional relevant content using AI-assisted search. powered by
Recent work has focused on hiding explicit network identifiers such as hardware addresses from the link layer to enable anonymous communications in wireless LANs. These protocols encrypt entire wireless packets, thereby providing unlinkability. However, we find that these protocols neglect to hide identifying information that is preserved within the wireless physical layer. We propose a technique using commodity wireless hardware whereby packets can be linked to their respective transmitters using signal strength information, thus degrading users’ anonymity. We discuss possible countermeasures, but ultimately we argue that controlling information leakage at the physical layer is inherently difficult.