EMF: Embedding multiple flows of information in existing traffic for concurrent communication among heterogeneous IoT devices

Chi, Zicheng; Huang, Zhichuan; Yao, Yao; Xie, Tiantian; Sun, Hongyu; Zhu, Ting

doi:10.1109/infocom.2017.8057109

Cited by 55 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…It is necessary to construct a simulated ZigBee time synchronization data packet that can be recognized by the ZigBee node. Due to hardware limitations and incompatibility between different protocol standards, the simulated signal generated by a physical-level CTC system cannot perfectly match the required signal [ 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Therefore, compared with the standard ZigBee signal, the simulated signal will be partially distorted.…”

Section: Algorithm Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

UAV-Assisted Low-Consumption Time Synchronization Utilizing Cross-Technology Communication

Ziyi

Yang

Pang

et al. 2020

Sensors

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Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been used in many fields due to its wide applicability. In this kind of network, each node is independent of each other and has its own local clock and communicates wirelessly. Time synchronization plays a vital role in WSNs and it can ensure accuracy requirements for coordination and data reliability. However, two key challenges exist in large-scale WSNs that are severe resource constraints overhead and multihop time synchronization errors. To address these issues, this paper proposes a novel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted low-consumption time synchronization algorithm based on cross-technology communication (CTC) for a large-scale WSN. This algorithm uses a UAV to send time synchronization data packets for calibration. Moreover, to ensure coverage and a high success rate for UAV data transmission, we use CTC for time synchronization. Without any relays, a high-power time synchronization packet can be sent by a UAV to achieve the time synchronization of low-power sensors. This algorithm can achieve accurate time synchronization with almost zero energy consumption for the sensor nodes. Finally, we implemented our algorithm with 30 low-power RF-CC2430 ZigBee nodes and a Da Jiang Innovations (DJI) M100 UAV on a 1 km highway and an indoor site. The results show that time synchronization can be achieved accurately with almost zero energy consumption for the sensor nodes, and the time synchronization error is less than 30 μs in 99% of cases.

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Section: Algorithm Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

UAV-Assisted Low-Consumption Time Synchronization Utilizing Cross-Technology Communication

Ziyi

Yang

Pang

et al. 2020

Sensors

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“…For the packet level CTC, it uses packet level information (e.g., packet duration [5,53], beacon interval [22], energy pattern [9,20,45], energy level [10,15,54]) as the minimal unit to construct special pattern that can be detected by other technologies [18,40]. Esense [5] proposes a WiFi to ZigBee CTC technology by sensing the WiFi packet length at the ZigBee side, in which the packet length is specified and can be distinguished from noise.…”

Section: Related Work 61 Cross-technology Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

AuthCTC: Defending Against Waveform Emulation Attack in Heterogeneous IoT Environments

Zhang

Huang

et al. 2020

Proceedings of the 15th ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security

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Widely deployed IoT devices have raised serious concerns for the spectrum shortage and the cost of multi-protocol gateway deployment. Recent emerging Cross-Technology Communication (CTC) technique can alleviate this issue by enabling direct communication among heterogeneous wireless devices, such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and ZigBee on 2.4 GHz. However, this new paradigm also brings security risks, where an attacker can use CTC to launch wireless attacks against IoT devices. Due to limited computational capability and different wireless protocols being used, many IoT devices are unable to use computationally-intensive cryptographic approaches for security enhancement. Therefore, without proper detection methods, IoT devices cannot distinguish signal sources before executing command signals. In this paper, we first demonstrate a new defined physical layer attack in the CTC scenario, named as waveform emulation attack, where a WiFi device can overhear and emulate the ZigBee waveform to attack ZigBee IoT devices. Then, to defend against this new attack, we propose a physical layer defensive mechanism, named as AuthCTC, to verify the legitimacy of CTC signals. Specifically, at the sender side, an authorization code is embedded into the packet preamble by leveraging the dynamically changed cyclic prefix. A WiFi-based detector is used to verify the authorization code at the receiver side. Extensive simulations and experiments using off-the-shelf devices are conducted to demonstrate both the feasibility of the attack and the effectiveness of our defensive mechanism. CCS CONCEPTS • Security and privacy → Authorization; • Networks → Mobile and wireless security.

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“…Direction communications between incompatible PHYs are studied in [3]- [8], [27]- [29]. Recent advances [3]- [8] explore more transparent approaches to embed side-channel bits without modifying the data of legacy packets. Differently, our goal is to explore the frequency dimension that has minimal impact on MAC behaviors.…”

Section: E Link Coding Schemementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent research efforts have been devoted to enable direct communications between heterogeneous IoT protocols and Wi-Fi. These pioneering designs enable cross-technology communications (CTC) by embedding bits into transmission power levels [3], [4] or packet transmission time shifts/patterns [5]- [8]. Despite that these innovations are transparent to legacy links in that they do not modify frame format or introduce extra packets, they still affect the media access control (MAC) layer behaviors in existing networks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-Technology Communications for Heterogeneous IoT Devices Through Artificial Doppler Shifts

Wang

Sun

et al. 2019

IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun.

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Recent years have seen major innovations in developing energy-efficient wireless technologies such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for Internet of Things (IoT). Despite demonstrating significant benefits in providing low power transmission and massive connectivity, hardly any of these technologies have made it to directly connect to the Internet. Recent advances demonstrate the viability of direct communication among heterogeneous IoT devices with incompatible physical (PHY) layers. These techniques, however, require modifications in transmission power or time, which may affect the media access control (MAC) layer behaviors in legacy networks. In this paper, we argue that the frequency domain can serve as a free side channel with minimal interruptions to legacy networks. To this end, we propose DopplerFi, a communication framework that enables a two-way communication channel between BLE and Wi-Fi by injecting artificial Doppler shifts, which can be decoded by sensing the patterns in the Gaussian frequency shift keying (GFSK) demodulator and Channel State Information (CSI). The artificial Doppler shifts can be compensated by the inherent frequency synchronization module and thus have a negligible impact on legacy communications. Our evaluation using commercial offthe-shelf (COTS) BLE chips and 802.11-compliant testbeds have demonstrated that DopplerFi can achieve throughput up to 6.5 Kbps at the cost of merely less than 0.8% throughput loss.

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EMF: Embedding multiple flows of information in existing traffic for concurrent communication among heterogeneous IoT devices

Cited by 55 publications

References 22 publications

UAV-Assisted Low-Consumption Time Synchronization Utilizing Cross-Technology Communication

UAV-Assisted Low-Consumption Time Synchronization Utilizing Cross-Technology Communication

AuthCTC: Defending Against Waveform Emulation Attack in Heterogeneous IoT Environments

Cross-Technology Communications for Heterogeneous IoT Devices Through Artificial Doppler Shifts

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