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A Needle in the Haystack - Delay Based User Identification in Cellular Networks

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Passive and Active Measurement (PAM 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCCN,volume 8362))

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Abstract

In this work, we discuss a technique for identifying users in cellular networks that exploits the effect that RRC state machine transitions have on the measured round-trip time of mobile devices. Our preliminary experiments performed in a controlled environment, show that it is possible to leverage popular real-time messaging apps, such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber, to trigger an observable delay pattern on a user’s device, and use it to identify the device.

This work has been partially supported by a Google Faculty Research Grant 2013.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

    Marco V. Barbera, Simone Bronzini, Alessandro Mei & Vasile C. Perta

Authors
  1. Marco V. Barbera
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  2. Simone Bronzini
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  3. Alessandro Mei
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  4. Vasile C. Perta
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, University of New Mexico, Engineering Building II, 87131, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Michalis Faloutsos

  2. EECS Department, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, 60208, Evanston, IL, USA

    Aleksandar Kuzmanovic

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Barbera, M.V., Bronzini, S., Mei, A., Perta, V.C. (2014). A Needle in the Haystack - Delay Based User Identification in Cellular Networks. In: Faloutsos, M., Kuzmanovic, A. (eds) Passive and Active Measurement. PAM 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8362. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04918-2_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04918-2_27

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-04917-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-04918-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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