Abstract
Though high-speed (3G) wide-area wireless networks have been rapidly proliferating, little is known about the robustness and security properties of these networks. In this paper, we make initial steps towards understanding these properties by studying Proportional Fair (PF), the scheduling algorithm used on the downlinks of these networks. We find that the fairness-ensuring mechanism of PF can be easily corrupted by a malicious user to monopolize the wireless channel thereby starving other users. Using extensive experiments on commercial and laboratory-based CDMA networks, we demonstrate this vulnerability and quantify the resulting performance impact. We find that delay jitter can be increased by up to 1 second and TCP throughput can be reduced by as much as 25 − 30% by a single malicious user. Based on our results, we argue for the need to use a more robust scheduling algorithm and outline one such algorithm.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Telecommunications Industry Association. CDMA 2000: High Rate Packet Data Air Interface Specification (TIA-856-A) (2004)
Bali, S., Machiraju, S., Zang, H., Frost, V.: On the Performance Implications of Proportional Fairness (PF) in 3G Wireless Networks. Technical Report RR06-ATL-040624, Sprint ATL (2006)
Bender, P., Black, P., Grob, M., Padovani, R., Sindhushayana, N., Viterbi, A.: CDMA/HDR: A Bandwidth-efficient High-speed Wireless Data Service for Nomadic Users. IEEE Communications Magazine 38, 70–77 (2000)
Borst, S.: User-level Performance of Channel-aware Scheduling Algorithms in Wireless Data Networks. In: Proc. of IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE, Los Alamitos (2003)
Chan, M.C., Ramjee, R.: Improving TCP/IP Performance over Third Generation Wireless Networks. In: Proc. of IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE, Los Alamitos (2004)
Harris, C.: Windows, TCP Performance Tuning Tips (2000), http://rdweb.cns.vt.edu/public/notes/win2k-tcpip.htm
Jalali, A., Padovani, R., Pankaj, R.: Data Throughput of CDMA-HDR: A High Efficiency-high Data Rate Personal Communication Wireless System. In: Proc. of IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, vol. 3, May 2000, pp. 1854–1858. IEEE, Los Alamitos (2000)
Klein, T., Leung, K., Zheng, H.: Enhanced Scheduling Algorithms for Improved TCP Performance in Wireless IP Networks. In: Proc. of GLOBECOM (2004)
Kuzmanovic, A., Knightly, E.W.: Low-rate TCP-targeted Denial of Service Attacks: The Shrew vs. The mice and Elephants. In: Proc. of SIGCOMM, Karlsruhe, Germany (2003)
Ostermann, S.: tcptrace, http://jarok.cs.ohiou.edu/software/tcptrace
Shakkottai, S., Stolyar, A.: Scheduling Algorithms for a Mixture of Real-time and Non-real-time Data in HDR. In: Proc. of ITC-17, September 2001 (2001)
tcpdump. http://www.tcpdump.org
Viswanath, P., Tse, D., Laroia, R.: Opportunistic Beamforming using Dumb Antennas. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 48, 1277–1294 (2002)
Wei, W., Zhang, C., Zang, H., Kurose, J., Towsley, D.: Inference and Evaluation of Split-Connection Approaches in Cellular Data Networks. In: Proc. of PAM (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bali, S., Machiraju, S., Zang, H., Frost, V. (2007). A Measurement Study of Scheduler-Based Attacks in 3G Wireless Networks. In: Uhlig, S., Papagiannaki, K., Bonaventure, O. (eds) Passive and Active Network Measurement. PAM 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4427. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71617-4_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71617-4_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-71616-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-71617-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)