| NSF Org: |
CNS Division Of Computer and Network Systems |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 19, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 19, 2015 |
| Award Number: | 1526102 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Marilyn McClure
mmcclure@nsf.gov (703)292-5197 CNS Division Of Computer and Network Systems CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2015 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $250,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $250,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
W5510 FRANKS MELVILLE MEMORIAL LIBRARY STONY BROOK NY US 11794 (631)632-9949 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
NY US 11794-4400 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | CSR-Computer Systems Research |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
Today's societies are intricately fused through a vast set of technology-driven networks, mostly mobile-based. Individuals equipped with feature-rich mobile devices are becoming the real-time eyes of world events, providing invaluable insights into remote, hard to access sites and events. However, in critical politically and socially charged settings an acceptable level of trust is difficult, especially since current technologies allow easy forging, manipulation and fabrication of data. The goal of this project is to design and build a mobile data technology with increased authenticity and integrity assurances. Of primary importance is the proof that data have been captured live on the actual mobile device and not fabricated. The new framework will more accurately verify that mobile data and the device sensor streams simultaneously captured are factually related and act as the required witness to the authenticity of reported data - a fundamental role in establishing the credibility of mobile and social media. Applications with important social impact include citizen journalism, smart city management and prototype verification.
The project will investigate, develop and evaluate a framework for secure and efficient sensor-based mobile data verification mechanisms. In a first thrust, the team will leverage TrustZone to build a trusted mobile device platform to bootstrap trust into sensor readings captured on the device and provide secure storage and a secure execution environment for sensitive functions. In a second thrust, the team will devise solutions to securely and efficiently capture, authenticate, communicate, archive, search, and access mobile device sensor snapshots ("sensorprints"). Finally, the team will develop mechanisms to verify the consistency between mobile data and simultaneously captured sensor streams. In addition, the developed solutions will be evaluated on newly introduced sensor-centric data plagiarism attacks and mobility based data categories.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Increasingly powerful affordable computing devices and ubiquitous wireless communication have profoundly changed our way of life and transformed computing from data processing centric to human centric. Social networking and social media transform mobile device users into “human sensors” that pervasively and continuously stream tremendous amounts of data. Such data, including video, photos and text reports from remote areas of interest can be exploited for various applications such as situational awareness and intelligence gathering. While social media are rapidly growing, solutions for establishing trust and assurance in the information they convey remain very limited, with no reliable trust determination and validation. This is because social media can be easily forged, manipulated or fabricated. For instance, videos and pictures from past events have been shown to be replayed as new in recent, impactful events. In addition, mobile devices of field deployed personnel captured by the adversary can be used to inject disinformation to the command and control center.
In this project we studied and proposed solutions for establishing the authenticity and integrity of media created on mobile devices, such as video, images and text. Such solutions are paramount to enable the use of mobile and social media for situational awareness and intelligence gathering purposes. In addition to assessing the device, location and time of capture, of primary interest is the “liveness” dimension of the problem: verify that data has been captured live on a mobile device, and has not been fabricated, e.g., using material from other sources.
Work encompassed three thrusts. First, we needed to establish trust in mobile devices, their sensors and storage. Second, we needed to develop efficient mechanisms to capture periodic snapshots of the device sensor readings (sensorprints) and to securely store them. When mobile devices are online, they upload their stored sensorprint history to the central command and control center. We needed to develop mechanisms to archive the sensorprint histories of mobile devices, while preserving the ease to search and access them. Third, we needed to develop efficient mobile media authenticity and integrity verifications that enable the command and control center to assess the consistency of the data with the sensorprint stream simultaneously captured.
We developed a trusted mobile device platform prototype using ARM TrustZone constructs. The platform can bootstrap trust into sensor readings captured on the device, provide secure storage for cryptographic material, and establish a secure execution environment for sensitive functions. We have devised commercial blockchain-based censorship-resistant storage techniques that can further pave the way toward an un-censorable web and DoS-resistant online services. In addition, we have introduced techniques to extract consistent, high-entropy features from images captured on mobile devices, to be used to easily and securely authenticate users.
Overall, the development of secure and usable mobile authentication solutions as well as solutions to provide visual verifications of complex information, can significantly empower free societies’ need for accurate trusted information and defeat truly fake news.
Last Modified: 10/09/2019
Modified by: Radu Sion
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