Computer Engineering Commons^™

Location Cheating: A Security Challenge To Location-Based Social Network Services, Mai Ren

Department of Computer Science and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Location-based mobile social network services such as Foursquare and Gowalla have grown exponentially over the past several years. These location-based services utilize the geographical position to enrich user experiences in a variety of contexts, including location-based searching and location-based mobile advertising. To attract more users, the location-based mobile social network services provide real-world rewards to the user, when a user checks in at a certain venue or location. This gives incentives for users to cheat on their locations.

In this thesis, we investigate the threat of location cheating attacks, find the root cause of the vulnerability, and outline the possible …