STARSS: Small: Collaborative: Zero-power Dynamic Signature for Trust Verification of Passive Sensors and Tags

随着RFID等被动标签技术变得更加经济和普遍，可以预见，在未来，与这些标签集成的数百万传感器可能成为下一代智能基础设施和物联网整体概念不可或缺的一部分。因此，保护这些被动资产不受数据盗窃和伪造的影响将成为当务之急，从而加强拟议的动态身份验证技术的重要性。本研究项目研究基于零功率定时和同步电路的无源RFID传感器和标签的动态软硬件认证技术。该项目探索了基于零功率定时器的动态防伪和硬件保证技术。这些定时器的运行基于电子通过氧化层和通过人工引入的氧化物陷阱的量子力学隧道传输的物理原理。正在探索的硬件-软件认证策略包括：(1)适时计时策略，其中定时器的响应将在不同的可信RFID传感器/标签上同步，并且将使用与预期响应的任何偏差来隔离伪造品；(2)篡改敏感计时策略，其中计时器用于检测可信RFID传感器/标签的任何窥探或篡改；以及(3)动态认证策略，其中计时器用于生成难以反向工程的散列函数。该项目在电气工程师和计算机科学家之间开发了一个硬件-软件信任验证领域的跨学科教育论坛。

As passive tagging technologies like RFID become more economical and ubiquitous, it can be envisioned that in the future, millions of sensors integrated with these tags could become an integral part of the next generation of smart infrastructure and the overall concept of internet-of-things. As a result, securing these passive assets against data theft and counterfeiting would become a priority, reinforcing the importance of the proposed dynamic authentication techniques. This research project investigates dynamic hardware-software authentication techniques on passive RFID sensors and tags based on zero-power timing and synchronization circuits. This project explores dynamic anti-counterfeiting and hardware assurance techniques based on zero-power timers. The operation of these timers are based on physics of quantum-mechanical tunneling of electron transport through the oxide layer and through synthetically introduced oxide-traps. The hardware-software authentication strategies being explored include: (1) Born-on-Date timing strategy where the response of the timers will be synchronized across different trusted RFID sensors/tags and any deviation from an expected response will be used to isolate counterfeits, (2) Tamper-sensitive timing strategy where the timer are used to detect any snooping or tampering of the trusted RFID sensors/tags, and (3) Dynamic authentication strategy where the timers are used to generate hashing functions that will be difficult to reverse engineer. The project develops a cross-disciplinary educational forum between the electrical engineers and computer scientists in the area of hardware-software trust verification.