Chameleon: defending secret information from eavesdropping over physical environment

Abstract

Eavesdropping of secret information is usually being prevented through using cryptography-based mechanisms. However, these mechanisms cannot guarantee protecting ones physical environments as information can be eavesdropped even before being encrypted, for example, by shoulder surfing. To address this problem, we propose a new technique called Chameleon to protect secret information from eavesdropping when the information is in transmission over physical medium. Chameleon is lightweight, easy-to-use, software-based solution to the solution. In Chameleon, we use a string, which is pre-mapped to a secret information, for transmitting over physical medium. After the string being received by the intended receiving device, a software module of Chameleon maps the string to the secret information and feed the secret information to the intended application. We perform real implementation of Chameleon to show its practical applicability.