Location privacy leaking from spectrum utilization information in database-driven cognitive radio network

The Database-driven Cognitive Radio Network is regarded as a promising way for a better utilization of radio channels without introducing the interference to the primary user. However, it is also facing a series of security threats. In this study, we identify a new kind of location privacy related attack which could geo-locate a secondary user from the spectrum he used. We propose a Spectrum Utilization based Location Inference Algorithm, which is based on the intersection of the possible location sets revealed by each channel access or channel transition event under the presence of the primary user. We implement our algorithm on the data extracted from Google Earth Coverage Maps released by FCC. Our experiement results show that, $80\%$ SUs could be located to 10 cells based on 25 or less channels.