Beacon authpath: Augmented human path authentication

Abstract

BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacons are being deployed in smart cities, especially to augment the shopping experience of customers in real outlets. Thus, humans as they walk in cities pass by different beacons and the sequence of beacons form a path. In this paper, we present how those augmented paths can authenticate a user in a secure way whereby the users can prove they have passed by a path, even with current unsecure beacons. We have built a prototype to validate this new authentication scheme with unsecure Estimote beacons. In addition, as an alternative to BLE, a similar system utilizing Wi-Fi to detect user proximity is reviewed as well.