Optimal Information-Theoretic Wireless Location Verification

TL;DR

This paper introduces an optimal information-theoretic Location Verification System for vehicular networks that maximizes mutual information to accurately verify user locations under realistic attack scenarios.

Contribution

It presents a novel LVS algorithm based on information theory that is optimal in mutual information and effective against malicious power-boosting attacks.

Findings

The LVS achieves near-optimal performance in realistic threat scenarios.

The decision rule is straightforward to implement and practical.

Performance improves as malicious users move further from the highway.

Abstract

We develop a new Location Verification System (LVS) focussed on network-based Intelligent Transport Systems and vehicular ad hoc networks. The algorithm we develop is based on an information-theoretic framework which uses the received signal strength (RSS) from a network of base-stations and the claimed position. Based on this information we derive the optimal decision regarding the verification of the user's location. Our algorithm is optimal in the sense of maximizing the mutual information between its input and output data. Our approach is based on the practical scenario in which a non-colluding malicious user some distance from a highway optimally boosts his transmit power in an attempt to fool the LVS that he is on the highway. We develop a practical threat model for this attack scenario, and investigate in detail the performance of the LVS in terms of its input/output mutual information. We show how our LVS decision rule can be implemented straightforwardly with a performance that delivers near-optimality under realistic threat conditions, with information-theoretic optimality approached as the malicious user moves further from the highway. The practical advantages our new information-theoretic scheme delivers relative to more traditional Bayesian verification frameworks are discussed.