Securing acoustics-based short-range communication systems: an overview

Abstract

Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have continued to grow in recent years. Nowadays, people rely on these ubiquitous smart devices and carry them everywhere in their daily lives. Acoustic signal, as a simple and prevalent transmitting vector for end-to-end communication, shows unique characteristics comparing with another popular communication method, i.e., optical signal, especially on the applications performed over smart devices. Acoustic signal does not require line- ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? signal using software acoustic modem only, which can be easily deployed on current off-the-shelf smart devices. Therefore, many acoustics-based short range communication systems have been developed and are used in sensitive applications such as building access control and mobile payment system. However, past work shows that an acoustic eavesdropper snooping on the communication between a transmitter and its legitimate receiver can easily break their communication protocol and decode the transmitted information. To solve this problem, many solutions have been proposed to protect the acoustic signal against eavesdroppers. In this overview, we explore the designs of existing solutions, the corresponding implementations, and their methodologies to protect acoustic signal communication. For each dependable and secure acoustics-based short range communication system, we present the major technical hurdles to be overcome, the state-of-the-art, and also offer a vision of the future research issues on this promising technology.