11.5. Location
Denning and MacDoran [249] suggest an innovative approach to authentication. They reason that if a user claims to be Anna, who is at that moment working in a bank in California but is also logging in from Russia at the same time, the user is impersonating Anna. Their scheme is based on the Global Positioning System (GPS), which can pinpoint a location to within a few meters. The physical location of an entity is described by a location signature derived from the GPS satellites. Each location (to within a few meters) and time (to within a few milliseconds) is unique, and hence form a location signature. This signature is transmitted to authenticate the user. The host also has a location signature sensor (LSS) and obtains a similar signature for the user. If the signatures disagree, the authentication fails.
This technique relies on special-purpose hardware. If the LSS is stolen, the thief would have to log in from an authorized geographic location. Because the signature is generated from GPS data, which changes with respect to time, location, and a variety of vagaries resulting from the nature of the electromagnetic waves used to establish position, any such signature would be unique and could not be forged. Moreover, if intercepted, it could not be replayed except within the window of temporal uniqueness.
This technique can also restrict the locations from which an authorized user can access the system.
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EXAMPLE:
Suppose Anna is an employee of a bank in California. The bank uses location-based authentication to verify logins. Anna's LSS is stolen, and the thief takes it to New York. From there, the thief tries to access the bank's computer.
Anna's LSS generates a signature and transmits it to the bank. The bank's LSS determines that Anna's LSS is in New York and is supplying a correct signature. However, Anna is not authorized to access the bank's computer from New York, so the authentication is rejected. If the thief tries to forge a message indicating that Anna is connecting from inside California, the host's LSS would report that Anna was at a different location and would reject the connection.
An interesting point is that the authentication can be done continuously. The LSS simply intermingles signature data with the transmitted data, and the host checks it. If the connection were hijacked, the data from the LSS would be lost. |
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