School of Engineering & Applied Science
Researchers from Princeton and MIT have found a way to intercept underwater messages from the air, overturning long held assumptions about the security of underwater transmissions.
The team created a device that uses radar to eavesdrop on underwater acoustic signals, or sonar, by decoding the tiny vibrations those signals create on the water’s surface. In principle, the technique could also roughly identify the location of an underwater transmitter, the researchers said.
In a paper presented at ACM MobiCom on November 20, the researchers detailed the new eavesdropping technology and offered ways to guard against the attacks it enables. They demonstrated the capability on Lake Carnegie, a small artificial lake in Princeton. Applying the technology in the open ocean would be significantly more challenging, but the researchers said they believed it would be possible with significant engineering improvements.
The researchers said their intention is not only to alert people to the vulnerability of underwater transmissions, but also to detail methods that can be used to prevent interceptions.
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