Abstract
OpenSky Network leverages the freely accessible data generated by the aircraft through the Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) technology to create a participatory global open-access network where individuals, industries, and academia can freely contribute and obtain data. Indeed, avionic data are acquired through on-ground general purpose antennas, installed and operated in adequate locations, and later delivered to the OpenSky Network community.
To maintain operators’ privacy while still keeping data value, OpenSky Network promises not to reveal the antenna location, if the data contributor wishes so. Thus, open data provided to the participating entities contain neither the location of the operating receiver, nor other location identification data.
In this work, we practically demonstrate that maintaining full location privacy in this scenario is almost unfeasible. We apply a time-based location estimation technique that, leveraging: (i) the disclosed location of legitimate receivers that did not opt in for location privacy; and, (ii) data provided by commercial and military aircraft, reveals with reasonable accuracy the location of the receivers that did opt-in for location privacy.
Results achieved by simulations and an experimental campaign over real data provided by the OpenSky Network support our claim, further confirming that maintaining location privacy while still contributing to the community cannot be fully achieved in the actual setting, hence calling for further research.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Strohmeier, M., Lenders, V., Martinovic, I.: On the security of the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast protocol. IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutorials 17(2), 1066–1087 (2015)
Strohmeier, M., Martinovic, I., Lenders, V.: A k-NN-based localization approach for crowdsourced air traffic communication networks. IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electr. Systs. 54(3), 1519–1529 (2018)
Kim, Y., Jo, J., Lee, S.: ADS-B vulnerabilities and a security solution with a timestamp. IEEE Aerosp. Electron. Syst. Mag. 32(11), 52–61 (2017)
Strohmeier, M., Smith, M., Moser, D., et al.: Utilizing air traffic communications for OSINT on state and government aircraft. In: International Conference on Cyber Conflict (2018)
Trüb, R., Moser, D., Schäfer, M., et al.: Monitoring meteorological parameters with crowdsourced air traffic control data. In: International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Network, April 2018
Sciancalepore, S., Di Pietro, R.: SOS - securing open skies. In: Wang, G., Chen, J., Yang, L.T. (eds.) SpaCCS 2018. LNCS, vol. 11342, pp. 15–32. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05345-1_2
Schäfer, M., Strohmeier, M., Lenders, V., et al.: Bringing up OpenSky: a large-scale ADS-B sensor network for research. In: Proceedings of International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Network, pp. 83–94, April 2014
Strohmeier, M., Martinovic, I., Fuchs, M., et al.: OpenSky: a swiss army knife for air traffic security research. In: Digital Avionics Systems Conference, pp. 1–14, September 2015
Schäfer, M., Strohmeier, M., Smith, M., et al.: OpenSky report 2018: assessing the integrity of crowdsourced mode S and ADS-B data. In: Digital Avionics Systems Conference, September 2018
Kacem, T., Wijesekera, D., Costa, P.C.G.: ADS-Bsec: a holistic framework to secure ADS-B. IEEE Trans. Intell. Veh. 3, 511–521 (2018)
Strohmeier, M., Schäfer, M., Pinheiro, R., Lenders, V., Martinovic, I.: On perception and reality in wireless air traffic communication security. IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst. 18(6), 1338–1357 (2017)
Calvo-Palomino, R., Ricciato, F., Repas, B., et al.: Nanosecond-precision time-of-arrival estimation for aircraft signals with low-cost SDR receivers. In: Proceedings of ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Network, pp. 272–277 (2018)
El Marady, A.: Enhancing accuracy and security of ADS-B via MLAT assisted-flight information system. In: International Conference on Computer Engineering and Systems, pp. 182–187, December 2017
Baker, R., Martinovic, I.: Secure location verification with a mobile receiver. In: Proceedings of the ACM Workshop on Cyber-Physical Systems Security and Privacy, pp. 35–46 (2016)
Sciancalepore, S., Alhazbi, S., Di Pietro, R.: Reliability of ADS-B communications: novel insights based on an experimental assessment. In: ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, April 2019
Martínez-Prieto, M.A., Bregon, A., García-Miranda, I., Álvarez Esteban, P.C., Díaz, F., Scarlatti, D.: Integrating flight-related information into a (big) data lake. In: Digital Avionics Systems Conference, September 2017
Strohmeier, M., Smith, M., Lenders, V., Martinovic, I.: The real first class? Inferring confidential corporate mergers and government relations from air traffic communication. In: IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy, April 2018
Ricciato, F., Sciancalepore, S., Gringoli, F., et al.: Position and velocity estimation of a non-cooperative source from asynchronous packet arrival time measurements. IEEE Trans. Mob. Comput. 17(9), 2166–2179 (2018)
Ogundare, O.: Understanding Least Squares Estimation and Geomatics Data Analysis. Wiley, Hoboken (2018)
Strohmeier, M., Lenders, V., Martinovic, I.: Lightweight location verification in air traffic surveillance networks. In: Proceedings of ACM Workshop on Cyber-Physical Systems Security, pp. 49–60 (2015)
Ricciato, F., Sciancalepore, S., Boggia, G.: Tracing a linearly moving node from asynchronous time-of-arrival measurements. IEEE Commun. Lett. 20(9), 1836–1839 (2016)
James, G., Witten, D., Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R.: An Introduction to Statistical Learning. STS, vol. 103. Springer, New York (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7138-7
Acknowledgements
This publication was partially supported by awards NPRP-S-11-0109-180242, UREP23-065-1-014, and NPRP X-063-1-014 from the QNRF-Qatar National Research Fund, a member of The Qatar Foundation. The information and views set out in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the QNRF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
About this paper
Cite this paper
Sciancalepore, S., Alhazbi, S., Di Pietro, R. (2019). Location Privacy Issues in the OpenSky Network Crowdsourcing Platform. In: Chen, S., Choo, KK., Fu, X., Lou, W., Mohaisen, A. (eds) Security and Privacy in Communication Networks. SecureComm 2019. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 304. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_27
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_27
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37227-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37228-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)