This paper presents TouchAuth, a new touch-to-access device authentication
approach using induced body electric potentials (iBEPs) caused by the indoor
ambient electric field that is mainly emitted from the building's electrical
cabling. The design of TouchAuth is based on the electrostatics of iBEP
generation and a resulting property, i.e., the iBEPs at two close locations on
the same human body are similar, whereas those from different human bodies are
distinct. Extensive experiments verify the above property and show that
TouchAuth achieves high-profile receiver operating characteristics in
implementing the touch-to-access policy. Our experiments also show that a range
of possible interfering sources including appliances' electromagnetic
emanations and noise injections into the power network do not affect the
performance of TouchAuth. A key advantage of TouchAuth is that the iBEP sensing
requires a simple analog-to-digital converter only, which is widely available
on microcontrollers. Compared with existing approaches including intra-body
communication and physiological sensing, TouchAuth is a low-cost, lightweight,
and convenient approach for authorized users to access the smart objects found
in indoor environments.

本文提出 TouchAuth，一种基于室内环境电场引起的 iBEPs 来进行设备认证的新方法。TouchAuth 采用了 iBEP 发生的静电学和一个结果特性，即同一人体上两个相邻位置的 iBEPs 相似，而来自不同人体的 iBEPs 是不同的。与现有的身体内通信和生理传感方法相比，TouchAuth 是一种低成本、轻便、方便的方法，授权用户进入室内环境中智能物品。