Abstract
In this work, we demonstrate the practicality of people tracking by means of physical-layer fingerprints of RFID tags that they carry. We build a portable low-cost USRP-based RFID fingerprinter and we show, over a set of 210 EPC C1G2 tags, that this fingerprinter enables reliable identification of individual tags from varying distances and across different tag placements (wallet, shopping bag, etc.). We further investigate the use of this setup for clandestine people tracking in an example Shopping Mall scenario and show that in this scenario the mobility traces of people can be reconstructed with a high accuracy.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Berbain, C., Billet, O., Etrog, J., Gilbert, H.: An efficient forward private RFID protocol. In: Proc. ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pp. 43–53 (2009)
Brik, V., Banerjee, S., Gruteser, M., Oh, S.: Wireless device identification with radiometric signatures. In: Proc. ACM International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (2008)
Danev, B., Heydt-Benjamin, T.S., ÄŒapkun, S.: Physical-layer identification of RFID devices. In: Proc. USENIX Security Symposium (2009)
Danev, B., ÄŒapkun, S.: Transient-based identification of wireless sensor nodes. In: Proc. ACM/IEEE Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (2009)
Dimitriou, T.: A lightweight RFID protocol to protect against traceability and cloning attacks. In: Proc. International ICST Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (2005)
Duc, D.N., Park, J., Lee, H., Kim, K.: Enhancing security of EPCglobal Gen-2 RFID tag against traceability and cloning. In: Proc. Symposium on Cryptography and Information Security (2006)
Ellis, K., Serinken, N.: Characteristics of radio transmitter fingerprints. Radio Science 36, 585–597 (2001)
EPCglobal: UHF Class 1 Gen 2 Standard v. 1.2.0. Standard (2008)
ETSI: ETSI EN 302 208-1 (2006)
Guiasu, S., Shenitzer, A.: The principle of maximum entropy. The Mathematical Intelligencer 7, 42–48 (1985)
Hall, J., Barbeau, M., Kranakis, E.: Enhancing intrusion detection in wireless networks using radio frequency fingerprinting. In: Proc. Communications, Internet, and Information Technology (2004)
Hall, J., Barbeau, M., Kranakis, E.: Detecting rogue devices in Bluetooth networks using radio frequency fingerprinting. In: Proc. IASTED International Conference on Communications and Computer Networks (2006)
Jana, S., Kasera, S.K.: On fast and accurate detection of unauthorized wireless access points using clock skews. In: Proc. ACM International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (2008)
Juels, A.: RFID security and privacy: A research survey. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications 24(2) (2006)
Karjoth, G., Moskowitz, P.A.: Disabling RFID tags with visible confirmation: clipped tags are silenced. In: Proc. ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society (2005)
Koscher, K., Juels, A., Kohno, T., Brajkovic, V.: EPC RFID tag security weaknesses and defenses: Passport cards, enhanced drivers licenses, and beyond. In: Proc. ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (2009)
Lee, Y.K., Batina, L., Singelée, D., Verbauwhede, I.: Low-cost untraceable authentication protocols for RFID. In: Proc. ACM Conference on Wireless Network Security (2010)
Periaswamy, S.C.G., Thompson, D.R., Di, J.: Ownership transfer of RFID tags based on electronic fingerprint. In: Proc. International Conference on Security and Management (2008)
Periaswamy, S.C.G., Thompson, D.R., Di, J.: Fingerprinting RFID tags. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing PrePrints (99) (2010)
Periaswamy, S.C.G., Thompson, D.R., Romero, H.P., Di, J.: Fingerprinting radio frequency identification tags using timing characteristics. In: Proc. Workshop on RFID Security - RFIDsec Asia (2010)
Rasmussen, K., ÄŒapkun, S.: Implications of radio fingerprinting on the security of sensor networks. In: Proc. International ICST Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (2007)
Reising, D.R., Temple, M.A., Mendenhall, M.J.: Improved wireless security for GMSK-based devices using RF fingerprinting. International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics 3, 41–59 (2010)
Reising, D.R., Temple, M.A., Mendenhall, M.J.: Improving intra-cellular security using air monitoring with RF fingerprints. In: Proc. IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (2010)
Romero, H.P., Remley, K.A., Williams, D.F., Wang, C.M.: Electromagnetic measurements for counterfeit detection of radio frequency identification cards. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques 57(5), 1383–1387 (2009)
Romero, H.P., Remley, K.A., Williams, D.F., Wang, C.M., Brown, T.X.: Identifying RF identification cards from measurements of resonance and carrier harmonics. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques 58(7), 1758–1765 (2010)
Shannon, C.: A mathematical theory of communication. The Bell System Technical Journal 27, 379–423 (1948)
Shaw, D., Kinsner, W.: Multifractal modeling of radio transmitter transients for classification. In: Proc. IEEE Conference on Communications, Power and Computing (1997)
Spiekermann, S., Evdokimov, S.: Privacy enhancing technologies for RFID - A critical investigation of state of the art research. In: Proc. IEEE Privacy and Security (2009)
Ureten, O., Serinken, N.: Detection of radio transmitter turn-on transients. Electronic Letters 35, 1996–1997 (2007)
Ureten, O., Serinken, N.: Wireless security through RF fingerprinting. Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering 32(1) (Winder 2007)
Zanetti, D., Danev, B., ÄŒapkun, S.: Physical-layer identification of UHF RFID tags. In: Proc. ACM Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (2010)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Zanetti, D., Sachs, P., Capkun, S. (2011). On the Practicality of UHF RFID Fingerprinting: How Real is the RFID Tracking Problem?. In: Fischer-Hübner, S., Hopper, N. (eds) Privacy Enhancing Technologies. PETS 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6794. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22263-4_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22263-4_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-22262-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-22263-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)