
NSF Org: |
CNS Division Of Computer and Network Systems |
Recipient: |
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Initial Amendment Date: | July 24, 2015 |
Latest Amendment Date: | November 18, 2016 |
Award Number: | 1526707 |
Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
Program Manager: |
Shannon Beck
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: | $499,999.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $499,999.00 |
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): | Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace |
Primary Program Source: |
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Program Reference Code(s): |
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Program Element Code(s): |
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Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
Plausibly deniable encryption is the ability to hide that given data is on a device, whether the ability exists to decrypt it, or even that the data exists. Plausible deniability is a powerful property to protect data on devices the user has lost physical control over, such as protecting consumers from accidental mass disclosures of private data through misplaced devices. This issue is of particular concern for anyone who travels internationally with sensitive data, including human rights workers, diplomats, military personnel, or even business travelers. This project leverages low-level characteristics of flash and other emergent persistent memories to hide data with plausible deniability, improving performance and capacity over the state of the art.
This project investigates a unique opportunity to implement plausibly deniable encryption using the underlying electrical properties of flash memory. The promising property of flash is that the same hardware cell can encode data in multiple ways, and adjust the encoding dynamically. This project integrates this encoding mechanism with data hiding: as long as the encoding follows an expected voltage distribution, an adversary cannot discern the precise encoding technique or how much data is encoded. This project also investigates firmware-level techniques to manage hidden data; extends these techniques to emerging persistent memories, such as phase change memory; and augments widely-used flash simulators. This project develops novel teaching materials for low-level flash programming.
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.
Plausibly deniable encryption is the ability to hide that given data is on a device, whether the ability exists to decrypt it, or even that the data exists. Plausible deniability is a powerful property to protect data on devices the user has lost physical control over, such as protecting consumers from accidental mass disclosures of private data through misplaced devices. This issue is of particular concern for anyone who travels internationally with sensitive data, including human rights workers, diplomats, military personnel, or even business travelers.
This project leveraged low-level characteristics of flash and other emergent persistent memories to hide data with plausible deniability, improving performance and capacity over the state of the art. One of the main ideas was to implement plausibly deniable encryption using the underlying electrical properties of flash memory. The promising property of flash is that the same hardware cell can encode data in multiple ways and adjust the encoding dynamically. This project integrated this encoding mechanism with data hiding: as long as the encoding follows an expected voltage distribution, an adversary cannot discern the precise encoding technique or how much data is encoded. This project also investigated firmware-level techniques to manage hidden data; extends these techniques to emerging persistent memories, such as phase change memory; and augments widely-used flash simulators. This project developed novel teaching materials for low-level flash programming. Finally, this project developed secure high-level constructs such as file systems that for the first time can defeat realistic nation-state adversaries that can encounter and attack unsuspecting users repeatedly over time.
Last Modified: 10/09/2019
Modified by: Radu Sion
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