Scientific knowledge map · Paper #13
Group Distance Bounding Protocols (Short Paper)
2011 · 4th International Conference on Trust and Trustworthy Computing (TRUST)
- Theory
- protocol
- primitive
Research question
What does the paper try to establish?
How can several provers and verifiers establish one-way distance bounds more efficiently than running every verifier-prover pair separately, while retaining a meaningful security argument?
Central answer
What is the proposed answer?
A passive verifier can infer a distance bound by observing an active distance-bounding exchange and combining time-difference-of-arrival geometry with the active verifier's bound. Rotating a subset of verifiers through the active role reduces message cost, but the guarantees depend on trusted active verifiers, known locations, radio and timing assumptions, and the security of the underlying pairwise protocol.
Full paper abstract
Abstract
Distance bounding (DB) protocols allow one entity, the verifier, to securely obtain an upper-bound on the distance to another entity, the prover. Thus far, DB was considered mostly in the context of a single prover and a single verifier. There has been no substantial prior work on secure DB in group settings, where a set of provers interact with a set of verifiers. The need for group distance bounding (GDB) is motivated by many practical scenarios, including: group device pairing, location-based access control and secure distributed localization. This paper addresses, for the first time, one-way GDB protocols by utilizing a new passive DB primitive. We show how passive DB can be used to construct secure and efficient GDB protocols for various one-way GDB settings. We analyze the security and performance of proposed protocols and compare them with existing DB techniques extended to group settings.
Provenance: Transcribed from the checked-in short-paper PDF; only typography, discretionary hyphenation, and line-break artifacts were normalized.
Evidence profile
Six dimensions, kept separate
The chart summarizes documented evidence and process. It is not a correctness probability, confidence score, or ranking, and no composite score is calculated.
LowMediumHighN/A = not assessed
A smaller value means less documented support for that dimension, not that the paper is false or unimportant.
- Epistemic evidence Medium
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The paper defines the primitive and group settings, gives a geometric security argument, and quantifies message savings. The security treatment is conditional and analytical, and no implementation, simulation, or machine-checked proof is supplied.
Passive distance-bounding primitive and geometric argument Message-count analysis and active-verifier tradeoff Security analysis and malicious-active-verifier boundary Conclusions and future work - Auditability High
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A complete author copy is checked into the site with source route, page count, and SHA-256 identity. Definitions, protocol steps, and analytical arguments are directly inspectable, though there is no executable artifact.
GDB cases, environmental assumptions, and adversary One-way group protocol construction Security analysis and malicious-active-verifier boundary - Production provenance Medium
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Named authorship, an archived author copy, and a DOI establish baseline provenance. Contributor roles, revision history, analysis scripts, and tool use are not documented.
Motivation, contribution, and one-way GDB scope Official short-paper publication record - External scrutiny Medium
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Publication as a TRUST short paper indicates venue review, but review reports, corrections, independent formal analysis, and empirical replication were not located.
Official short-paper publication record - Reception High
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ResearchGate displayed 14 citations on 2026-07-11, which meets the rubric's 11-or-more high band. The count is index-specific and may merge related versions.
Citation-count snapshot - Contribution significance Medium
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The paper introduces a clear group generalization and a reusable passive primitive, but the short version leaves important trust, synchronization, and implementation questions open.
Motivation, contribution, and one-way GDB scope Passive distance-bounding primitive and geometric argument Conclusions and future work
Assessment: Ai draft author review pending · 2026-07-11 · rubric 0.2. These dimensions describe documented support and process, not truth, correctness, or a universal ranking. No composite score is calculated.
Top-down and bottom-up view
Hierarchical knowledge map
Collapse a branch for a top-level reading, or follow its source links and child nodes to audit the evidence and boundaries underneath it.
One-way group distance bounding
A short paper defining group distance-bounding settings and introducing passive observation as a primitive for cheaper multi-party protocols.
Motivation, contribution, and one-way GDB scope-
question Research question
research questionCan multiple verifiers and provers establish secure upper-distance bounds with fewer rapid exchanges than a complete pairwise deployment?
Motivation, contribution, and one-way GDB scope -
contribution Central answer
analytically supportedLet some verifiers actively challenge while others passively observe timing; passive bounds can be derived geometrically and the active fraction controls a security-efficiency tradeoff.
Passive distance-bounding primitive and geometric argument One-way group protocol construction Message-count analysis and active-verifier tradeoff -
scope One-way group settings explicitly scoped
The construction addresses many-prover/many-verifier, one-prover/many-verifier, and many-prover/one-verifier one-way cases; mutual GDB is acknowledged but left outside this short paper.
GDB cases, environmental assumptions, and adversary Conclusions and future work-
assumption group Timing, geometry, and trust assumptions
assumedNodes are in mutual radio range, rapid processing is available, verifiers know their locations and pairwise distances, and passive verifiers can receive the three relevant transmissions.
GDB cases, environmental assumptions, and adversary Passive distance-bounding primitive and geometric argument -
threat model Adversary and exclusions
definedProvers may collude and attempt distance or mafia fraud, but verifiers are trusted in the base argument; reception blocking, directional antennas, terrorist fraud, and distance hijacking beyond the assumed base protocol are excluded.
GDB cases, environmental assumptions, and adversary Security analysis and malicious-active-verifier boundary
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primitive Passive distance bounding proposed
A passive verifier timestamps the active verifier's commitment/challenge and the prover's response, then combines a time-difference-of-arrival hyperbola with the active distance bound to derive its own upper bound.
Passive distance-bounding primitive and geometric argument-
security argument Why a prover cannot shorten only the passive bound
conditional argumentUnder the timing geometry, making the passive verifier infer an impossibly short distance would also require defeating the active verifier's underlying distance-bound exchange.
Passive distance-bounding primitive and geometric argument
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protocol Active/passive GDB protocol
proposedA selected fraction of verifiers runs active pairwise exchanges while remaining verifiers observe them, permitting each active exchange to contribute bounds to more than one verifier.
One-way group protocol construction -
analytic evidence Communication-cost analysis
calculatedFor the paper's 30-prover/30-verifier example, an 80% active fraction saves about one third of messages and a 60% active fraction saves more than half relative to naive pairwise execution.
Message-count analysis and active-verifier tradeoff -
analytic evidence Security analysis
conditional analysisThe paper relates success probability to the underlying distance-bounding protocol and the chance that an adversary controls active verifiers; it provides analytical metrics rather than a reduction-style theorem or machine-checked proof.
Security analysis and malicious-active-verifier boundary -
limitation Malicious active verifier boundary
materialAn active verifier can lie about location or send challenges early, so passive conclusions are only as trustworthy as the active participant and underlying protocol; multiple simultaneous verifiers may be needed for secure localization.
Security analysis and malicious-active-verifier boundary -
limitation group Unresolved scope
explicitly reportedThe short paper has no implementation or noisy-channel evaluation and leaves mutual GDB, passive operation without known verifier locations, denial of service, and realistic group-radio conditions to future work.
Conclusions and future work -
artifact group Artifacts
paper onlyThe located artifact is the complete eight-page short paper. No protocol implementation, trace set, or formal proof artifact is linked.
Motivation, contribution, and one-way GDB scope Message-count analysis and active-verifier tradeoff -
scrutiny External scrutiny and reception
venue reviewedThe work appeared at TRUST 2011 and ResearchGate reports 14 citations; review reports and an independent implementation or proof audit were not located.
Official short-paper publication record Citation-count snapshot -
lineage Research lineage
source assertedThe paper extends distance bounding from one verifier-prover pair to group settings and introduces passive distance bounding as the organizing primitive for that extension.
Motivation, contribution, and one-way GDB scope Passive distance-bounding primitive and geometric argument
Audit trail
Source index
Locators state the depth of the current audit. PDF page numbers, where present, are one-based file pages; metadata-, summary-, and abstract-bounded records explicitly identify their limitations.
- Motivation, contribution, and one-way GDB scope Abstract and Section 1, PDF pages 1-2
- GDB cases, environmental assumptions, and adversary Section 2, PDF pages 2-3
- Passive distance-bounding primitive and geometric argument Section 3, PDF pages 4-5
- One-way group protocol construction Section 4, PDF pages 5-6
- Message-count analysis and active-verifier tradeoff Section 5.1, PDF page 6
- Security analysis and malicious-active-verifier boundary Section 5.2, PDF pages 6-7
- Conclusions and future work Section 7, PDF page 8
- Official short-paper publication record TRUST 2011, DOI record
- Citation-count snapshot ResearchGate displayed Citations (14), observed 2026-07-11; the page may merge or separate versions differently from other indexes.