SBIR Phase I: A Robust Caller-ID Alternative for Securing Telephony Based Transactions

该小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段研究项目将探索能够提高对融合电话基础设施的信任度而不会对用户体验产生负面影响的技术。长期以来，电话一直被视为一种可信的通信媒介，通过电话进行的各种交易都依赖于这种信任。例如，为了打击信用卡和其他金融欺诈，银行依靠其通过电话与客户安全通信的能力。不幸的是，虽然传统电话与蜂窝和IP网络的融合提供了许多好处，但它也使其面临更多的安全威胁。呼叫元数据（如呼叫者标识符）现在可以很容易地被操纵，包括语音钓鱼在内的攻击已经给银行造成了经济损失。这个研究项目的智力价值在于证明电话中的源和中间网络在音频中引入了可用于唯一识别其源的伪影。该项目将研究捕获关键调用工件的功能，并将机器学习技术应用于指纹调用源。一个关键的目标将是验证初步结果的规模，将出现在现实世界的部署。该项目的更广泛的影响将来自一个安全的呼叫者ID替代品的发展，适用于企业设置以及在消费者端。由于所提出的方法仅依赖于接收端的音频分析，因此不需要对电话基础设施进行任何更改。这是特别有利的，不仅因为该基础设施的复杂性和多样性，而且还因为与加密解决方案不同，呼叫的两端都不需要参与该过程。电话无处不在的特性和对这种媒介的信任可能受到的侵蚀将对企业和公民产生严重后果。该项目的成功将有助于保持这种信任，因此将产生广泛的商业和社会影响。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project will explore technologies that will enable an improvement in trust in the converged telephony infrastructure without negatively impacting user experience. Telephony has long been viewed as a trusted communications medium and a variety of transactions conducted over the telephone depend on such trust. For example, to combat credit card and other financial fraud, banks rely on their ability to securely communicate with their customers via the phone. Unfortunately, while the convergence of traditional telephony with cellular and IP networks offers many benefits, it has opened it to additional security threats. Call metadata such as caller identifier can now be easily manipulated and attacks including voice phishing have already resulted in financial losses for banks. The intellectual merit of this research project lies in demonstrating that the source and intermediary networks in a phone call introduce artifacts in the audio that can be used to uniquely identify its source. The project will investigate features that capture key call artifacts and apply machine learning techniques to fingerprint call sources. A key goal will be the validation of the preliminary results at the scale that will arise in real-world deployments.The broader impact of the project will come from the development of a secure Caller-ID alternative with applicability both in the enterprise setting as well as at the consumer end. Because the proposed approach only relies on analysis of audio at the receiving end, it requires no changes to be made to the telephony infrastructure. This is especially advantageous not only because of the complex and diverse nature of this infrastructure, but also because unlike a cryptographic solution both ends of a call do not need to participate in the process. The ubiquitous nature of the telephone and possible erosion of trust in this medium will have serious consequences for both businesses and citizens. The success of this project will help maintain this trust and thus it will have broad commercial and societal impact.