NDLI: A Location-Privacy Threat Stemming from the Use of Shared Public IP Addresses

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Vratonjic, N. Huguenin, K. Bindschaedler, V. Hubaux, J.-P.
Copyright Year	2002
Abstract	This paper presents a concrete and widespread example of situation where a user's location privacy is unintentionally compromised by others, specifically the location-privacy threat that exists at access points (public hotspots, FON, home routers, etc.) that have a single public IP and make use of network address translation (NAT). As users connected to the same hotspot share a unique public IP address, a single user's making a location-based request is enough to enable a service provider to map the IP address of the hotspot to its geographic coordinates, thus compromising the location privacy of all the other connected users. When successful, the service provider can locate users within a few hundreds of meters, thus improving over existing IP-location databases. Even in the case where IPs change periodically (e.g., by using DHCP), the service provider is still able to update a previous (IP, Location) mapping by inferring IP changes from authenticated communications (e.g., cookies). The contribution of this paper is three-fold: (i) We identify a novel location-privacy threat caused by shared public IPs in combination with NAT. (ii) We formalize and analyze the threat theoretically. In particular we derive and provide expressions of the probability that the service provider will learn the mapping and of the expected proportion of victims. (iii) We experimentally assess the state in practice by using real traces (collected from deployed hotspots over a period of 23 days) of users who accessed Google services. We also discuss how existing countermeasures can thwart the threat.
Sponsorship	IEEE Computer Society
Starting Page	2445
Ending Page	2457
Page Count	13
File Size	1404821
File Format	PDF
ISSN	15361233
Volume Number	13
Issue Number	11
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2014-01-01
Publisher Place	U.S.A.
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	IP networks Google Servers Internet Mobile computing Databases Accuracy IP-geolocation Location privacy network address translation (NAT)
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Computer Networks and Communications Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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