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

随着像RFID这样的被动标签技术变得越来越经济和无处不在，可以想象，在未来，数以百万计的传感器与这些标签集成在一起，可能成为下一代智能基础设施和物联网整体概念的组成部分。因此，保护这些被动资产免受数据盗窃和伪造将成为优先事项，从而加强了所提议的动态身份验证技术的重要性。本研究计划探讨基于零功率时序与同步电路的无源RFID感测器与标签的动态硬软体验证技术。本项目探索基于零功耗定时器的动态防伪和硬件保证技术。这些计时器的操作是基于电子通过氧化层和通过合成引入的氧化阱传输的量子力学隧穿物理。正在研究的软硬件认证策略包括：(1)出生日期定时策略，计时器的响应将在不同的可信RFID传感器/标签上同步，任何偏离预期的响应将用于隔离伪造，(2)篡改敏感定时策略，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，计时器用于生成哈希函数，这将难以逆向工程。该项目为电气工程师和计算机科学家在硬件-软件信任验证领域之间建立了一个跨学科的教育论坛。

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.