arXiv subjects

Pinchang Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to Pinchang Zhang.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

IriSig-Spoof: A Real-World Benchmark for Time-Robust Satellite RF Fingerprinting and Spoofing Detection

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite Internet is becoming critical communications infrastructure, yet its open wireless links remain vulnerable to satellite impersonation and signal spoofing. Radio frequency fingerprinting (RFF) offers a potential defense by exploiting transmitter-specific hardware imperfections manifested in received signals. However, the reliability of existing satellite RFF methods remains difficult to assess because no unified dataset and benchmark support temporal, open-set, and cross-scenario evaluation. To address this gap, we introduce IriSig-Spoof, a real-world Iridium dataset comprising 5.17 million messages collected from 66 satellites over 32 days, together with software-defined radio (SDR)-generated spoofing signals from indoor and outdoor settings. We further establish three benchmark tasks: temporal robustness evaluation, open-set RFF identification with unknown-signal rejection, and cross-scenario spoofing detection. Experiments using a multi-scale attention convolutional neural network (MACNN) show that temporal robustness varies across configurations, with the best configuration achieving 97.75% average cross-day accuracy. In open-set evaluation, MACNN achieves an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.9715, while showing that effective unknown-signal rejection does not necessarily ensure reliable identity assignment. Cross-scenario experiments reveal differences at low false-positive rates. IriSig-Spoof provides a reproducible basis for evaluating robust RFF methods under temporal variation and changing attack conditions.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2026

On a General Theoretical Framework for Radio Frequency Fingerprint-Based Authentication

While radio frequency fingerprint (RFF)-based wireless device authentication has been widely studied across different datasets and scenarios, there still lacks a fundamental theory to explain why and how RFF can serve as a reliable device identity, significantly hindering the practical application of such an authentication technology. In this article, we integrate the RFF modeling with authentication property analysis to propose a general theoretical framework to facilitate the development of such a theory. The RFF modeling process reveals how RFFs are induced, evolved and observed along the transmitter-channel-receiver chain, built upon which, the authentication property analysis process then outlines how the trustworthiness of an RFF should be examined in terms of its uniqueness, stability, distinguishability, and unforgeability. By linking the RFF formation/evolution to these authentication properties, the framework offers a solid foundation for understanding why and how RFF-based authentication is trustworthy in practice. We also discuss the communication-authentication co-design issue based on the theoretical insights from the proposed framework.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2026

GalSAS-SDR-SIM: An End-to-End Simulation Platform for Galileo Signal Authentication Service

Galileo is developing a Signal Authentication Service (SAS) that integrates Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) on the E1 band with Spreading Code Authentication (SCA) on the E6 band to strengthen its resilience to spoofing attacks. As Galileo SAS is still under development, access to realistic and controllable SAS signals remains limited, hindering both the early development of compatible receivers and reproducible research on signal authentication. To bridge this gap, this paper presents GalSAS-SDR-SIM, an open-source software-defined radio (SDR) simulation platform that emulates the SAS workflow by coupling E6 code encryption with the OSNMA key-disclosure process. The platform allows flexible SAS configuration of code encryption parameters to accommodate receivers with different computational capabilities. It also supports the concurrent generation of Galileo E1, E5b, and E6 signals for user-defined locations and times, and OSNMA cross-satellite configurations. Experimental results demonstrate simultaneous verification of navigation messages and spreading codes. We further evaluate SAS authentication performance and computational resource costs under different SAS configurations. Implemented according to publicly available official specifications, GalSAS-SDR-SIM provides a practical tool for accelerating SAS-capable receiver development and supporting the research community in evaluating and improving Galileo signal-authentication techniques.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2025

CovertAuth: Joint Covert Communication and Authentication in MmWave Systems

Beam alignment (BA) is a crucial process in millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications, enabling precise directional transmission and efficient link establishment. However, due to characteristics like omnidirectional exposure and the broadcast nature of the BA phase, it is particularly vulnerable to eavesdropping and identity impersonation attacks. To this end, this paper proposes a novel secure framework named CovertAuth, designed to enhance the security of the BA phase against such attacks. In particular, to combat eavesdropping attacks, the closed-form expressions of successful BA probability and covert transmission rate are first derived. Then, a covert communication problem aimed at jointly optimizing beam training budget and transmission power is formulated to maximize covert communication rate, subject to the covertness requirement. An alternating optimization algorithm combined with successive convex approximation is employed to iteratively achieve optimal results. To combat impersonation attacks, the mutual coupling effect of antenna array impairments is explored as a device feature to design a weighted-sum energy detector based physical layer authentication scheme. Moreover, theoretical models for authentication metrics like detection and false alarm probabilities are also provided to conduct performance analysis. Based on these models, an optimization problem is constructed to determine the optimal weight value that maximizes authentication accuracy. Finally, simulation results demonstrate that CovertAuth presents improved detection accuracy under the same covertness requirement compared to existing works.

cs.CR↗