Closing the Blinds: Four Strategies for Protecting Smart Home Privacy from Network Observers

TL;DR

This paper proposes four strategies—blocking, concealing DNS, tunneling, and traffic shaping—to protect smart home users from privacy breaches caused by network traffic analysis by observers.

Contribution

It introduces four novel strategies for smart home privacy protection against network traffic analysis, with detailed implementation insights.

Findings

Strategies effectively obscure traffic patterns

Implementation nuances enhance privacy protection

Provides a foundation for future privacy-sensitive smart home designs

Abstract

The growing market for smart home IoT devices promises new conveniences for consumers while presenting novel challenges for preserving privacy within the home. Specifically, Internet service providers or neighborhood WiFi eavesdroppers can measure Internet traffic rates from smart home devices and infer consumers' private in-home behaviors. Here we propose four strategies that device manufacturers and third parties can take to protect consumers from side-channel traffic rate privacy threats: 1) blocking traffic, 2) concealing DNS, 3) tunneling traffic, and 4) shaping and injecting traffic. We hope that these strategies, and the implementation nuances we discuss, will provide a foundation for the future development of privacy-sensitive smart homes.