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SoK: Fighting Counterfeits with Cyber-Physical Synergy Based on Physically-Unclonable Identifiers of Paper Surface

Anirudh Nakra, Min Wu, Chau-Wai Wong

TL;DR

This work constructs a generalized paper-based authentication framework and identifies important shortcomings and promising ideas in the existing literature, and does a stage-wise security analysis of the consolidated framework by drawing inspiration from works in signal processing, cryptography, and biometric systems.

Abstract

Counterfeit products cause severe harm to public safety and health by penetrating untrusted supply chains. Numerous anti-counterfeiting techniques have been proposed, among which the use of inherent, unclonable irregularities of paper surfaces has shown considerable potential as a high-performance economical solution. Prior works do not consider supply chains cohesively, either focusing on creating or improving unclonable identifiers or on securing digital records of products. This work aims to systematically unify these two separate but connected research areas by comprehensively analyzing the needs of supply chains. We construct a generalized paper-based authentication framework and identify important shortcomings and promising ideas in the existing literature. Next, we do a stage-wise security analysis of our consolidated framework by drawing inspiration from works in signal processing, cryptography, and biometric systems. Finally, we examine key representative scenarios that illustrate the range of practical and technical challenges in real-world supply chains, and we outline the best practices to guide future research.

SoK: Fighting Counterfeits with Cyber-Physical Synergy Based on Physically-Unclonable Identifiers of Paper Surface

TL;DR

This work constructs a generalized paper-based authentication framework and identifies important shortcomings and promising ideas in the existing literature, and does a stage-wise security analysis of the consolidated framework by drawing inspiration from works in signal processing, cryptography, and biometric systems.

Abstract

Counterfeit products cause severe harm to public safety and health by penetrating untrusted supply chains. Numerous anti-counterfeiting techniques have been proposed, among which the use of inherent, unclonable irregularities of paper surfaces has shown considerable potential as a high-performance economical solution. Prior works do not consider supply chains cohesively, either focusing on creating or improving unclonable identifiers or on securing digital records of products. This work aims to systematically unify these two separate but connected research areas by comprehensively analyzing the needs of supply chains. We construct a generalized paper-based authentication framework and identify important shortcomings and promising ideas in the existing literature. Next, we do a stage-wise security analysis of our consolidated framework by drawing inspiration from works in signal processing, cryptography, and biometric systems. Finally, we examine key representative scenarios that illustrate the range of practical and technical challenges in real-world supply chains, and we outline the best practices to guide future research.
Paper Structure (28 sections, 1 equation, 6 figures, 2 tables, 1 algorithm)

This paper contains 28 sections, 1 equation, 6 figures, 2 tables, 1 algorithm.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Dissecting Supply Chains into Two Worlds
  3. The Physical World
  4. Extrinsic Identifiers
  5. Intrinsic Identifiers
  6. The Cyber World
  7. Protecting the Physical World Using Intrinsic Paper PUF Identifiers
  8. Origin of Paper's Unclonable Microstructures
  9. Desired Properties for Paper PUFs
  10. Physical Attacks
  11. A General Framework for Paper-based Authentication Systems
  12. Norm Map Based Authentication
  13. Taxonomy of Existing Methods
  14. Attacks on paper-PUF-based Authentication
  15. Desired Properties of Secure Systems
  16. ...and 13 more sections

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: (a) An example of the dynamics of a supply chain and its constituents. (b) Demarcation of the supply chain into the physical and cyber world.
  • Figure 2: [Top row] Examples of extrinsic identifiers: (a) Copy detection pattern template (reproduced from khermaza2021can), (b) BubbleTag™, (c) FiberTag™, (adapted from bubblefibertag), and (d) sticker with randomly positioned fibers (adapted from kindetag). [Bottom row] Examples of intrinsic identifiers, visualized in (e) A RGB image, (f) a confocal microscope image, and (g) a topography map of paper surface respectively, adapted from rehberger2007topographical. (h) Norm map.
  • Figure 3: The norm map based anti-counterfeiting system framework that divides $\mathcal{A} = (f,\phi,\mathcal{D},\delta)$ into different operational stages 1--4. We highlight the potential attack location of significant threats using red dashed arrows.
  • Figure 4: (a) A model of the microscopic view of paper used for inversion, adapted from wongtifs.
  • Figure 5: A client--server authentication system
  • ...and 1 more figures