Enhancing Location Privacy of Future Aircraft Wireless Communications
Krishna Sampigethaya, Radha Poovendran · 10th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations (ATIO) Conference · 2010
Future aircraft will depend on “cyber” technology, such as Automated Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) and Internet Protocol (IP) networking, for operating in a shared airspace. These aircraft are envisioned as cyber-physical systems that promise to enhance safety, capacity, efficiency and convenience of air travel. This paper focuses on threats from misuse of aircraft data communications. Ease of access to wireless communications as well as the personal, political or proprietary nature of air travel raises privacy concerns for some aircraft users. A major concern is the exploitation of an aircraft’s communications for deriving identity and position traces of that aircraft, resulting in potential privacy violations such as inference of travel intent and patterns. Privacy enhancement of air traffic data communications, however, is challenging to achieve due to a delicate balance with airspace security. This paper proposes a privacy framework for protecting traffic data communications from aircraft. The framework identifies privacy threats and proposes anonymity solution approaches that can enhance, potentially maximize, location privacy level of airspace users without compromising airspace security.