'Who, when, and where?' Location proof assertion for mobile devices

Abstract

In recent years, location of mobile devices has become an important factor. Mobile device users can easily access various customized applications from the service providers based on the current physical location information. Nonetheless, it is a significant challenge in distributed architectures for users to prove their presence at a particular location in a privacy-protected and secured manner. So far, researchers have proposed multiple schemes to implement a secure location proof collection mechanism. However, such location proof schemes are subject to tampering and not resistant to collusion attacks. Additionally, the location authority providing a location proof is assumed to be honest at all times. In this paper, we present the fundamental requirements of any location proof generation scheme, and illustrate the potential attacks possible in such non-federated environments. Based on our observations, we introduce a concept of witness oriented endorsements, and describe a collusion-resistant protocol for asserted location proofs.We provide an exhaustive security analysis of the proposed architecture, based on all possible collusion models among the user, location authority, and witness. We also present a prototype implementation and extensive experimental results to adjust different threshold values and illustrate the feasibility of deploying the protocol in regular devices for practical use. © 2014 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.