NeTS: Small: Collaborative Research: Identifying Design and Operational Loopholes in Cellular Network Protocols

NetS：小型：协作研究：识别蜂窝网络协议中的设计和操作漏洞

• 批准号: 1748630
• 负责人: Chunyi Peng
• 金额: $ 4.41万
• 依托单位: Purdue University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-08-25 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1748630&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NeTS; Small; Collaborative; Research; Identifying

The cellular network is the largest wireless infrastructure deployed today. It plays an important role to provide users mobile Internet access and cellular voice service. A key design component of the cellular network is its signaling protocols, which operate on the control plane. Compared with their Internet counterparts, these signaling protocols are more complex to ensure vital control functions, such as mobility support, radio resource control, session management for data and voice, to name a few. Consequently, their proper design and operation are critical to both the cellular operators and the users. The objective of this project is to devise tools and verify the correctness of signaling protocols in current cellular networks by: (i)identifying design loopholes in the protocols defined by the 3GPP standards, as well as operational slips made by operators and vendors, (ii) analyzing their root causes and performance penalties, and (iii) devising techniques that fix such problems. The proposed activities can enhance the reliability of cellular networks in both design and practice. They will help us to not only better understand how to avoid design and implementation mistakes in a cellular system, but also to renovate the current protocol design and even affect the upcoming 5G cellular technology in its standardization. If successful, the results will facilitate the design and practice of a more reliable mobile Internet infrastructure for our society. The project will also recruit and train a new generation of students and engineers, including those from minority groups, who are technically ready for the mobile Internet era. The PIs will interact closely with the related industry for possible technology transfer. The research in this project has two main thrusts. One is to devise tools and identify design loopholes and operational slips in cellular networks. The project will develop a cellular-specific verifier that adapts generic model-checking techniques with domain-specific cellular knowledge, and uses phone-based empirical validation. The project will apply model checking to identify a superset of potential candidate loopholes, and then validate the real ones through experiments over operational 3G/4G carriers, by focusing on design slips in two categories: (a) protocols interaction with shared certain context (e.g., connection status, commands, IP address, virtual connection), which is popular in cross-layer, cross-domain, and inter-system protocol communications; (b) Out-of-sequenced signaling delivery. When the designated sequence of control messages is disrupted, its cost is way beyond lost or delayed messages. Missequenced signals are reacted based on defined semantics and may trigger wrong protocol operations. This project will also assess the real-world impact of both categories of issues through user studies over operational carriers. The other thrust of this project is to propose fixes to the identified loopholes. The proposed solutions incorporate new heuristics into cellular signaling protocols and call for concerted effort on the mobile device and the network infrastructure.

蜂窝网络是当今部署的最大无线基础架构。它为用户提供移动Internet访问和蜂窝语音服务起着重要作用。 蜂窝网络的关键设计组件是其信号协议，该协议在控制平面上运行。与他们的Internet同行相比，这些信号协议更为复杂，可以确保重要的控制功能，例如移动性支持，无线电资源控制，数据和语音的会话管理，以等。因此，它们的适当设计和操作对于蜂窝操作员和用户都至关重要。 该项目的目的是设计工具并验证当前蜂窝网络中信号协议的正确性：（i）通过以下方式识别由3GPP标准定义的协议中的设计漏洞，以及操作员和供应商的操作板，（ii）分析其根本原因和性能惩罚，以及（iii）（iii）（iii）设计这些问题的问题。提出的活动可以提高设计和实践中蜂窝网络的可靠性。 他们将帮助我们不仅更好地了解如何避免在蜂窝系统中的设计和实施错误，还可以对当前的协议设计进行翻新，甚至影响即将到来的5G蜂窝技术。如果成功，结果将有助于为我们的社会提供更可靠的移动互联网基础设施的设计和实践。该项目还将招募和培训新一代的学生和工程师，包括来自少数群体的学生和工程师，他们在技术上为移动互联网时代做好了准备。 PI将与相关行业紧密互动以进行技术转移。 该项目中的研究有两个主要推力。一种是设计工具并识别蜂窝网络中的设计漏洞和操作单。该项目将开发一种细胞特异性的验证者，该验证者将通用模型检查技术与域特异性蜂窝知识相适应，并使用基于电话的经验验证。该项目将应用模型检查以确定潜在的候选漏洞的超集，然后通过专注于两类的设计单，通过操作3G/4G载体​​进行实验来验证真实的漏洞：（a）协议与共享某些上下文的协议相互作用（例如，连接状态，命令，IP地址，虚拟连接，虚拟连接），在交叉范围中，交叉式，cross-dysectection，and Cross-netystectiation，以及交叉; （b）传递的信号传递。当指定的控制消息序列中断时，其成本将超出丢失或延迟消息。错误的信号基于定义的语义做出反应，并可能触发错误的协议操作。该项目还将通过用户研究对操作运营商的用户研究来评估两类问题的现实影响。该项目的另一个力量是提出对确定的漏洞的修复。提出的解决方案将新的启发式方法纳入了蜂窝信号传导协议中，并呼吁在移动设备和网络基础架构上进行一致的努力。