Novel Perspectives on Physical Layer Security and Privacy in Wireless Communications
PhD Marco Cominelli
University of Brescia
DEIB - PT1 Room (Building 20)
November 8th, 2023
12.00 pm
Contacts:
Matteo Cesana
Research Line:
Networking
University of Brescia
DEIB - PT1 Room (Building 20)
November 8th, 2023
12.00 pm
Contacts:
Matteo Cesana
Research Line:
Networking
Sommario
On November 8th, 2023 at 12.00 pm Marco Cominelli, postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Brescia, will give a seminar titled "Novel Perspectives on Physical Layer Security and Privacy in Wireless Communications" in DEIB PT1 Room (Building 20).
Traditional research in network security has been focusing on guaranteeing essential security features such as authentication, confidentiality, and integrity protection, citing a few. However, modern processing systems—usually powered by general-purpose GPUs with massive computational capabilities—facilitate novel types of security and privacy attacks. In our work, we prove that it is possible to jeopardize users’ security and privacy with attacks that have been rarely considered in the literature but are now worth investigating. Indeed, advanced analysis of communication signals and the unprecedented computational power of communication devices can be used to reveal sensitive information, such as the identity or the location of unaware victims. Our goal is to propose suitable countermeasures to such attacks when possible.
We consider two wireless technologies in particular: Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Concerning Bluetooth, we are primarily interested in showing that it is easy to identify and track any Bluetooth connection due to its inadequate anonymization mechanism. On the other hand, Wi-Fi signals have been recently used in a radar-like fashion to localize people in indoor environments, thanks to the physical interaction of human bodies with wireless signals.
We present and discuss some privacy-preserving frameworks to disrupt unauthorized Wi-Fi sensing without hindering legitimate communications.
Marco Cominelli is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Brescia.
He received his Ph.D. in Information Engineering from the University of Brescia in 2023. Before, he was also a visiting student at the University of Edinburgh and Northeastern University. His research interests are at the intersection of wireless communications and machine learning, currently focusing on localization and sensing techniques.
He co-authored 17 papers published in international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings with over 200 citations indexed by Google Scholar, receiving four Best Paper Awards. He is a member of ACM SIGMOBILE and IEEE.
Traditional research in network security has been focusing on guaranteeing essential security features such as authentication, confidentiality, and integrity protection, citing a few. However, modern processing systems—usually powered by general-purpose GPUs with massive computational capabilities—facilitate novel types of security and privacy attacks. In our work, we prove that it is possible to jeopardize users’ security and privacy with attacks that have been rarely considered in the literature but are now worth investigating. Indeed, advanced analysis of communication signals and the unprecedented computational power of communication devices can be used to reveal sensitive information, such as the identity or the location of unaware victims. Our goal is to propose suitable countermeasures to such attacks when possible.
We consider two wireless technologies in particular: Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Concerning Bluetooth, we are primarily interested in showing that it is easy to identify and track any Bluetooth connection due to its inadequate anonymization mechanism. On the other hand, Wi-Fi signals have been recently used in a radar-like fashion to localize people in indoor environments, thanks to the physical interaction of human bodies with wireless signals.
We present and discuss some privacy-preserving frameworks to disrupt unauthorized Wi-Fi sensing without hindering legitimate communications.
Marco Cominelli is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Brescia.
He received his Ph.D. in Information Engineering from the University of Brescia in 2023. Before, he was also a visiting student at the University of Edinburgh and Northeastern University. His research interests are at the intersection of wireless communications and machine learning, currently focusing on localization and sensing techniques.
He co-authored 17 papers published in international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings with over 200 citations indexed by Google Scholar, receiving four Best Paper Awards. He is a member of ACM SIGMOBILE and IEEE.
