QuietPlace: An Ultrasound-Based Proof of Location Protocol with Strong Identities

Abstract

Location-based services are becoming extremely popular due to the widespread use of smartphones and other mobile and portable devices. These services mainly rely on the sincerity of users, who can spoof the location they report to them. For applications with higher security requirements, the user should be unable to report a location different than the real one. Proof of Location protocols provide a solution to secure localization by validating the device's location with the help of nearby nodes. We propose QuietPlace, a novel protocol that is based on ultrasound and provides strong identities, proving the location of the owner of a device, without exposing though their identity. QuietPlace provides unforgeable proof that is able to resist to various attacks while respecting the users' privacy. It can work regardless of certificate authority and location-based service and is able to support trust schemas that evaluate the participants' behavior. We implement and validate the protocol for Android devices, showing that ultrasound-based profiles offer a better performance in terms of maximum receiving distance than audible profiles, and discuss its strengths and weaknesses, making suggestions about future work.

Composable Anonymous Proof-of-Location With User-Controlled Offline Access

“…Proof-of-location systems have been widely studied [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [10], [13], [29], [30]. Lack of formal security model has led to attacks on POL systems, for example, absence of the message travel time measurements makes POL in [6] and [31] vulnerable to relay attacks. Systems with formal security models [5], [8], [13] consider a single instance of the protocol and cannot be securely composed with other protocols.…”

“…User anonymity is considered in [5], [8], [29], [30], and [31]. [29], [30] only provide anonymity against the verifier, and do not have formal security models.…”

“…[29], [30] only provide anonymity against the verifier, and do not have formal security models. As in our work, pseudonyms have been used to provide user anonymity in [5], [8], and [31]. Among these [8] and [31] considered anonymity with respect to both the issuer and the verifier.…”

MobChain: Three-Way Collusion Resistance in Witness-Oriented Location Proof Systems Using Distributed Consensus

“…), which was efficient due to the use of the non-cryptographic technique for location verification. Idrees et al [ 51 , 52 ] have proposed secure provenance schemes in a distributed environment using aggregated signatures. Furthermore, the authors did not assume any transitive trust among consecutive colluding users, which is a stronger security model compared to previous studies.…”

“…A comparative analysis of essential security properties is also provided for various secure provenance schemes in these domains. QuietPlace [ 51 ], an ultrasound-based location proof system, is introduced and provides strong identities. Kounas et al [ 51 ] claim to provide strong user privacy using an ultrasound-based approach while proving the physical presence of a user at a claimed location.…”