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Title

Capacity of temperature-based covert channels

Author(s)

Zander, Sebastian;  Branch, Philip;  Armitage, Grenville

Abstract

Covert channels aim to hide the existence of communication. Recently, Murdoch proposed a temperature-based covert channel where information is transmitted by remotely inducing and measuring changes of temperature of an unwitting intermediate host. The channel was invented for the purpose of attacking anonymous servers, but could also be used for general-purpose covert communications. We propose an empirical method for estimating realistic (and previously unknown) capacities for this channel. In example scenarios with different intermediate hosts and different levels of temperature induction and noise we find the channel capacity is up to 20.5 bits per hour, but it almost halves to 10.3 bits per hour with higher noise or more effective cooling at the intermediate host.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies. Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures

Source

IEEE Communications Letters, Vol. 15, no. 1 (Jan 2011), pp. 82-84

Publication year

2011

FOR Code(s)

0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering;  1005 Communications Technologies

Keyword(s)

Capacity;  Covert channels;  Network security

Publisher

IEEE

ISSN

1089-7798

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LCOMM.2010.110310.101334

Copyright

Copyright © 2010 IEEE. The accepted manuscript of the paper is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.

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