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

随着RFID等无源标签技术变得更加经济和无处不在，可以预见，在未来，数百万与这些标签集成的传感器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，加强了拟议的动态身份验证技术的重要性。本研究计划主要探讨基于零功率时序与同步电路的被动式RFID感测器与标签之动态软硬体认证技术。本项目探讨基于零功耗定时器的动态防伪和硬件保证技术。这些定时器的操作是基于电子传输通过氧化物层和通过综合引入的氧化物陷阱的量子力学隧穿物理。正在探索的硬件-软件身份验证策略包括：（1）实时定时策略，其中定时器的响应将在不同的可信RFID传感器/标签之间同步，并且与预期响应的任何偏差将用于隔离伪造品，（2）篡改敏感定时策略，其中定时器用于检测可信RFID传感器/标签的任何窥探或篡改，以及（3）动态认证策略，其中定时器用于生成难以逆向工程的散列函数。该项目开发了一个跨学科的教育论坛之间的电气工程师和计算机科学家在该地区的硬件-软件的信任验证。

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.