Towards Decentralized Proof-of-Location

Abstract

Location-based services have become ubiquitous in today’s society, and their integration with various applications and technologies has shaped our interaction with the physical world. The current state of location-based systems is very far from ensuring integrity of the location data, especially in trustless environments, with no individual reliability guarantees. A paradigm shift is needed in order to provide security against geo-tampering or location spoofing. To address such requirements, digital and verifiable Proof-of-Location systems may help in materializing the idea of location-based authentication or authorization in adversarial environments. Such systems allow for a vast range of applications in the fields of smart cities, augmented democracy, digital integrity, liability, and internet transparency. In this thesis, we present a novel approach to the problem, dissecting the Proof-of-Location systems’ paradigm and building upon existing work, to further prototype the path towards fully decentralized Proof-of-Location. Making use of mesh network technologies and permissionless consensus mechanisms, we specify a new protocol and implement and evaluate a proof-of-concept, showcasing the generation of complete, verifiable, and spatio-temporally sound location proofs.