Synopsis
Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) technique enables wireless devices, which is called secondary users (SUs), to use spectrum that are allocated to licensed incumbent users (IUs) as long as they do not interfere with IUs' operation. It has been widely accepted as a crucial solution to mitigate the spectrum scarcity problem for wireless communications. As a key form of DSA, US government has proposed to release more Federal spectrum for sharing with commercial wireless users. It has also recommended a spectrum access system (SAS) database to govern the spectrum sharing between IUs and SUs. However, the flourish of SAS-driven Federal-Commercial sharing hinges upon how privacy issues are managed. In current SAS schemes, the operation data of both federal IUs and commercial SUs need to be shared with the SAS database for it to decide if sharing is permitted. Yet, operation data of federal IUs are often classified information and SU operation data may also be commercial secret. Since SAS is not necessarily operated by a trusted third party and can potentially be breached by attackers, these current schemes threaten the privacy of both IUs and SUs. To address this privacy issue, this project will develop a privacy-preserving SAS (P2-SAS), which ensures that the SAS system can still accurately decide whether spectrum sharing among IUs and SUs are permitted while it learns nothing about the operation data of IUs and SUs. This project is the first to be able to successfully realize privacy-preserving spectrum allocation in SAS. It will address regulators concerns with DSA s privacy issue and hence greatly help the development of the entire nation's broadband networks. The project will also provide a blueprint on how privacy-preserving mechanisms can be integrated in many other communication systems beyond DSA. The project realizes its privacy preserving spectrum allocation using secure homomorphic computation. In P2-SAS, IUs and SUs share only ciphertexts of their operation data with the SAS Server. SAS Server then performs secure homomorphic computation directly over these ciphertexts, so that none of the IU/SU operation data would be exposed to any snooping party, including the SAS itself. The project is able to convert complex spectrum allocation computation and certification procedures into the limited homomorphic computation types provided by efficient Paillier cryptosystems. Leveraging the unique characteristics of spectrum allocation computation, various refining techniques are explored to significantly reduce the computation and communication overhead of P2-SAS and prevent potential attacks on the system.Major Personnel
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Broader Impact
A better allocation and management of spectrum is clearly the only viable solution for overcoming the severe spectrum shortage problem. Thus, federal and commercial systems must share their spectrum using DSA in the coming decade. However, such systems give rise to many new spectrum assurance and privacy issues. Thus, regulators and potential SU/IU operators will not be willing to adopt such a flexible sharing of the radio spectrum unless these issues are adequately addressed. Research results from this project will provide valuable solutions for addressing such concerns and hence greatly help the development of the entire nation's broadband networks. The developed techniques will provide a blueprint on how privacy-preserving mechanisms can be integrated in many other communication systems beyond DSA. Resource allocation is an important area for networking system design. Our work marks the first step in bringing privacy-preserving designs into this domain. Beyond spectrum allocation, it can potentially spark privacy-preserving designs for computation resource allocation, storage resource allocation, task allocation, power allocation, work load allocation, and other type of common resource allocation problems in networking systemsEducation Activities
CESCA day 2019 has been successfully held on April 27, 2019 in Claytor Lake State Park's meeting facility. As a student centered all-day event, 45 graduate students in Virginia Tech participated to exchange research ideas and receive faculty advices and training on presentation skills, especially elevator talks and poster talks. Detailed feedback about student presentation skills were given to the participating students by 8 faculty judges. The event also invited Dr. Michael Henry, the founder of a promising start-up company Mythic, Inc., to give a talk about his company's products and discuss with the audiences about how to navigate in the world of entrepreneurship.