SURF: Eavesdropping on Underwater Communications from the Air
ACM MobiCom ’24, November 18–22, 2024, Washington D.C., DC, USA
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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ACM|The 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking
2025
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/158064 |
| _version_ | 1824458354576064512 |
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| author | Mollahosseini, Poorya Afzal, Sayed Saad Adib, Fadel Ghasempour, Yasaman |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Mollahosseini, Poorya Afzal, Sayed Saad Adib, Fadel Ghasempour, Yasaman |
| author_sort | Mollahosseini, Poorya |
| collection | MIT |
| description | ACM MobiCom ’24, November 18–22, 2024, Washington D.C., DC, USA |
| first_indexed | 2025-02-19T04:24:34Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/158064 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-02-19T04:24:34Z |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publisher | ACM|The 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1580642025-01-24T21:21:15Z SURF: Eavesdropping on Underwater Communications from the Air Mollahosseini, Poorya Afzal, Sayed Saad Adib, Fadel Ghasempour, Yasaman Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) ACM MobiCom ’24, November 18–22, 2024, Washington D.C., DC, USA This paper investigates how an airborne node can eavesdrop on the underwater acoustic communication between submerged nodes. Conventionally, such eavesdropping has been assumed impossible as acoustic signals do not cross the water-air boundary. Here, we demonstrate that underwater acoustic communications signals can be picked up and (under certain conditions) decoded using an airborne mmWave radar due to the minute vibrations induced by the communication signals on the water surface. We implemented and evaluated a proof-of-concept prototype of our method and tested it in controlled (pool) and uncontrolled environments (lake). Our results demonstrate that an airborne device can identify the modulation and bitrate of acoustic transmissions from an uncooperative underwater transmitter (victim), and even decode the transmitted symbols. Unlike conventional over-the-air communications, our results indicate that the secrecy of underwater links varies depending on the modulation type and provide insights into the underlying reasons behind these differences. We also highlight the theoretical limitations of such a threat model, and how these results may have a significant impact on the stealthiness of underwater communications, with particular concern to submarine warfare, underwater operations (e.g., oil & gas, search & rescue, mining), and conservation of endangered species. Finally, our investigation uncovers countermeasures that can be used to improve or restore the stealthiness of underwater acoustic communications against such threats. 2025-01-24T21:21:13Z 2025-01-24T21:21:13Z 2024-12-04 2025-01-01T08:46:53Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper 979-8-4007-0489-5 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/158064 Mollahosseini, Poorya, Afzal, Sayed Saad, Adib, Fadel and Ghasempour, Yasaman. 2024. "SURF: Eavesdropping on Underwater Communications from the Air." PUBLISHER_CC en https://doi.org/10.1145/3636534.3690663 Creative Commons Attribution https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The author(s) application/pdf ACM|The 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking Association for Computing Machinery |
| spellingShingle | Mollahosseini, Poorya Afzal, Sayed Saad Adib, Fadel Ghasempour, Yasaman SURF: Eavesdropping on Underwater Communications from the Air |
| title | SURF: Eavesdropping on Underwater Communications from the Air |
| title_full | SURF: Eavesdropping on Underwater Communications from the Air |
| title_fullStr | SURF: Eavesdropping on Underwater Communications from the Air |
| title_full_unstemmed | SURF: Eavesdropping on Underwater Communications from the Air |
| title_short | SURF: Eavesdropping on Underwater Communications from the Air |
| title_sort | surf eavesdropping on underwater communications from the air |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/158064 |
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