Feasibility Study of Location Authentication for IoT Data Using Power Grid Signatures

Abstract

Ambient signatures related to the power grid offer an under-utilized opportunity to verify the time and location of sensing data collected by the Internet-of-Things (IoT). Such power signatures as the Electrical Network Frequency (ENF) have been used in multimedia forensics to answer questions about the time and location of audio-visual recordings. Going beyond multimedia data, this paper investigates a refined power signature of Electrical Network Voltage (ENV) for IoT sensing data and carries out a feasibility study of location verification for IoT data. ENV reflects the variations of the power system's supply voltage over time and is also present in the optical sensing data, akin to ENF. A physical model showing the presence of ENV in the optical sensing data is presented along with the corresponding signal processing mechanisms to estimate and utilize ENV signals from the power and optical sensing data as location stamps. Experiments are conducted in the State of Maryland of the United States to demonstrate the feasibility of using ENV signals for location authentication of IoT data.