SaTC: CORE: Small: Exploiting Stimulus-response Correlation for Wireless Hidden Device Localization

智能物联网（IoT）设备，如无线摄像头和语音控制设备，通常采用运动或语音活动检测来提高安全性和便利性，因此在检测到物理刺激（例如运动或声音）时，它们开始工作并将传感数据上传到云端。这些设备的无处不在也带来了与未经授权的监控相关的隐私问题，因为它们可以很容易地隐藏在酒店房间等各种位置。传统的检测无线隐藏设备的方法主要有射频扫描、镜头检测和物理搜索。后两种方法很麻烦，因为它们需要检查目标区域的每个角落。射频扫描可以在设备主动传输时工作，但现有的工作只能检测传感器的存在，而不是其确切位置。然而，检测通常是不够的，因为设备所有者可能会声称它在房间外的某个地方或由其他人安装。通过寻找物理设备，隐私被侵犯的受害者可以获得直接、确凿的证据。这个项目的重点是调查隐藏无线设备的刺激和可见无线流量的结果模式之间的因果关系。本研究旨在(i)设计实用的方法来精确定位无线隐藏设备，利用人工刺激和由此产生的无线流量之间的相关性，以及（ii）开发针对基于刺激-响应的设备定位方案的对策。该项目将创造技术，从本质上保护用户隐私，防止未经授权的监控通过无线隐藏设备。这项研究的结果将被公开分享。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Smart Internet-of-things (IoT) devices, such as wireless cameras and voice-controlled devices, commonly employ motion or voice activity detection for increased security and convenience, so that upon detecting physical stimuli (e.g., motion or sound), they start to work and upload the sensing data to the cloud. The ubiquity of such devices also brings privacy concerns associated with unauthorized monitoring, as they can be kept hidden easily in various locations like hotel rooms. Traditional ways to detect a wireless hidden device mainly include Radio Frequency (RF) scanning, lens detection, and physical search. The latter two methods are cumbersome as they require inspecting every corner of the target area. RF scanning may work when the device is actively transmitting, but existing work can only detect a sensor's existence, not its exact location. However, detection is often insufficient, as the device owner may claim it is somewhere outside of the room or installed by others. By finding the physical device, a victim whose privacy is violated can obtain direct and solid evidence.This project focuses on investigating causality between stimuli to hidden wireless devices and resultant patterns in observable wireless traffic. This research aims at (i) designing practical approaches to pinpoint wireless hidden devices leveraging the correlation between artificial stimuli and resultant wireless traffic, and (ii) developing countermeasures against stimulus-response-based device localization schemes. The project will create techniques that substantially safeguard user privacy against unauthorized monitoring via wireless hidden devices. The results from this research will be openly shared.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.