Anti-jamming timing channels for wireless networks

ABSTRACT

Wireless communication is susceptible to radio interference, which prevents the reception of communications. Although evasion strategies have been proposed, such strategies are costly or ineffective against broadband jammers. In this paper, we explore an alternative to evasion strategies that involves the establishment of a timing channel that exists in spite of the presence of jamming. The timing channel is built using failed packet reception times. We first show that it is possible to detect failed packet events inspite of jamming. We then explore single sender and multisender timing channel constructions that may be used to build a low-rate overlay link-layer. We discuss implementation issues that we have overcome in constructing such jamming-resistant timing channel, and present the results of validation efforts using the MICA2 platform. Finally, we examine additional error correction and authentication mechanisms that may be used to cope with adversaries that both jam and seek to corrupt our timing channel.

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Index Terms

• Security and privacy

  • Network security