That was the central question at the session “How Smart Are Your Smartphones?” presented by Md Zakirul Alam Bhuiyan, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer and information science at Fordham, on July 23. Bhuiyan has written more than 120 papers published by IEEE and ACM—two of the most prestigious professional societies in his field. 

On the second day of the 2019 International Conference on Cyber Security, he spoke about the pros of using Wi-Fi, potential drawbacks of a network’s security and privacy concerns, and possible solutions. What’s wonderful about Wi-Fi, he said, is it piggybacks on already deployed infrastructure and works through thick walls. These days, people can even use Wi-Fi to transform themselves into human remote controls in their homes. Using simple hand gestures and a nearby Wi-Fi network, they can turn off lights and TVs, he said, showing a few sample videos on a projector screen. 

However, Wi-Fi has its fair share of cons. There are too many interferences, he said, leaving a network vulnerable to channel state information (CSI) attacks. A person sitting a few feet away from you in a cafe could compromise your confidential info, he said. 

In order to hack a person’s Wi-Fi network, a hacker needs to achieve four things, said Bhuiyan: force a victim’s device to be a Wi-Fi sender, locate CSI segments generated by password input, reduce noise in raw CSI data, and infer the person’s password using CSI. 

But smartphones are smart enough to deter some hackers. One possible way to protect people from hacking is CSI fingerprint localization, he said. Another method is one he’s currently working on: a non-cryptography-based authentication technique. 

After spending a good deal of the session on the vulnerabilities of Wi-Fi, Bhuiyan talked about a new, innovative purpose for those network signals: using them to detect guns in a non-invasive way. The signals can scan a person’s body and, through signal variations, distinguish the difference between soft, human flesh and a weapon’s hard metal exterior. Compared to cameras and probing human hands, they are less invasive. More research is needed, he said, but this method holds promise for the future—a future where Wi-Fi will remain ubiquitous. 

“We are talking, we are sitting, moving … wherever we are, our Wi-Fi can be utilized to monitor us everywhere,” Bhuiyan said. 

1. Your smartphone is a sophisticated sensing device. Most people have no idea about how many sensors are incorporated into every iPhone and Android phone. Test yourself against the following list: audio sensor (microphone), image sensor (camera), acceleration sensor (tri-axial accelerometer), direction sensor (magnetic compass), rotation sensor (gyroscope), proximity sensor, light sensor, touch sensor, and multiple location sensors (e.g., GPS). And if you think, “at least my phone does not have a sense of smell,” think again. “Smell” sensors are being developed and, unlike your sniffer, they will also be able to measure carbon monoxide levels.

2. Your smartphone is a health/medical device that will become much more capable in the next few years. The ActiTracker service being developed in Fordham’s WISDM Lab will monitor your smartphone’s accelerometer to track your physical activities (walking, jogging, sitting, etc.), and provide the results via a Web-based interface. The “Instant Heart Rate” app that is currently available uses your phone’s camera to detect changes in the color of your fingertip (which must cover the lens) to determine your heart rate. Researchers are currently working to dramatically boost the magnification of your phone’s camera lens so that your phone can act as a microscope to analyze blood and skin samples. Researchers at MIT’s Mobile Experience Lab are even developing a sensor to attach to your clothes that will allow your smartphone to track your UV radiation exposure. At least for those with serious medical issues, the smartphone of the future will likely become the central component of your “Body LAN” (Local Area Network), as a variety of sensors are embedded in your clothes and accessories.

3. Your smartphone will become an even better digital assistant in the near future. Right now your smartphone can serve as a voice recorder, remind you of scheduled appointments, and dial your phone (“Call Mary”). For those with an iPhone, your assistant even has a name, “Siri,” and Google will almost certainly release their own assistant before year’s end. But in the future these digital assistants will do much more: walk into your hotel room and they will wirelessly adjust the temperature; enter a meeting and they will provide the names of all of the participants (from their mobile digital assistants); and walk down the street and they will tell you if your friends are near (this feature is available now).

4. Your smartphone can replace your credit cards. Right now, if you have certain models of Android phones, you can use Google Wallet to pay for purchases by tapping your phone against the store’s PayPass reader. Virtually all major credit cards are currently supported. In the future every smartphone will have this capability, and all stores will likely have the required readers. This method will likely be more secure than current payment methods.

5. Your smartphone supports augmented reality. Augmented reality involves the superimposition of graphics, audio and other information over a real-world environment that is displayed in real time. While everyone is waiting for Google Glasses, which will display relevant information onto specially designed glasses as you navigate the world (e.g., look at a restaurant and up pops a menu and coupon), for now most of us will have to make do with our smartphones and tablet computers. You can, of course, use Google Goggles to take a picture of an object to retrieve information about it, as well as use Star Chart for the iPhone, or Google Sky Map for Android, to learn about the stars (hold up your phone to the night sky and they superimpose information for you to view). Google Glasses will, quite literally, change our perception of reality.

Technological advancements will force us to change the way we think about smartphones and other mobile devices. Their increasing ability to sense and interact with the environment will make them more intelligent and autonomous, while their increasing ability to serve as assistants and share vast amounts of knowledge will make them an even more integral part of our lives.

– Gary M. Weiss, Ph.D.

Owners of smartphones take for granted that when they tilt their phones sideways, their screens adjust from a vertical to a horizontal display.

Gary M. Weiss, Ph.D., has found that the sensor that governs this function, known as a triaxial accelerometer, can be used to determine detailed information about who is holding the phone and what activity he or she is performing.

Weiss, an assistant professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science at Fordham, presented his findings in the presentation “Mining Smart Phone Data” on Jan. 11 at the 2012 International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham.

The research is part of the WISDM (Wireless Sensor Data Mining) Project, which Weiss is leading with funding from the National Science Foundation, Google and Fordham, and assistance from a dozen Fordham undergraduates.

“You have to understand how something is being used before you can ensure security and privacy,” he told a standing-room-only crowd of security professionals.

The idea is to use the data generated by a smartphone to make predictions about who a person is and what he or she is doing at a particular time—whether it’s walking, running, jumping, climbing stairs or sitting.

“Why would we want to do this, assuming we’re not a hacker trying to sell this information? As a data miner, we want to exploit data to the greatest extent possible. We want to learn things about you and use them in an ethical manner,” he said.

“The idea is, if we can track your activities, we can have some measure of how active you are, and that can be useful for you to monitor your health or your children’s health.”

Examples of potential applications of this data include sending a call directly to voicemail if the phone knows a person is running, switching to inspirational music if a jogger is slowing down (i.e., the theme to Rocky) or calling 911 if an elderly user falls.

Based on a sample of 36 participants, Weiss found that his team’s analysis accurately predicted what a user was doing 72 percent of the time. When a model was personalized for one user, that model was correct almost 100 percent of the time.

In addition, the project accurately predicted the sex of the user 71 percent of the time and was able to distinguish between tall and short people and light and heavy people about 80 percent of the time.

“Based on the way you move, based on the accelerometer in your pocket, we can tell who you are, at least within a restricted pool of people,” Weiss said. “Thus, smartphones can be used for biometric identification, just like laptops now can use face recognition to recognize its users.”

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