Assistive Listening Knowledge Base
  • Peer-reviewed conference paper

BACON: improving broadcast audio authentication

From https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/gasteiger-2024-bacon/ · record checked 13 October 2026

  • Gasteiger T, Perazzo P, Schuß M, Boano CA, Basic F, Dini G, Römer K
  • IEEE MILCOM 2024 (Graz University of Technology; University of Pisa)

Independent (Graz University of Technology; University of Pisa); funding not stated in the paper

Summary

Proposes a way to authenticate Bluetooth LE broadcast audio so that receivers can tell a genuine broadcast from an impostor.

Key findings

  • Section II (BIS security) and section III explain that encrypted broadcast authentication uses a key derived from the shared Broadcast_Code. An attacker who knows that code can defeat this protection, impersonate broadcasts or disrupt reception; the paper also distinguishes unencrypted broadcasts.
  • Presents BACON, a mechanism designed to work within the Bluetooth core specification, which authenticates both the audio streams and the control information sent to all receivers in range.
  • Uses lightweight symmetric cryptography so that it fits on resource-constrained devices.
  • Sections VI and VII describe a proof of concept on two development boards transmitting dummy audio; the effect on practical audio applications remains future work.
  • Section VI (PDF pages 6–7, Figures 7–8) reports tests of ten runs of 1,000 BIG events, using a Wi-Fi access point to create interference. Authentication added processing time and receiver power consumption. The additional authentication packets reduced packet reception compared with the stream without BACON; increasing retransmissions narrowed that reception gap but also increased power use. These are development-board measurements, not hearing-device battery-life tests.
  • The threat model in section III concerns adversaries who know the shared code; it does not establish a measured rate of attacks in operating venues.

Limits

Read from the archived full author-hosted conference paper (https://www.carloalbertoboano.com/documents/gasteiger24bacon.pdf), which contains no funding statement. A proposed mechanism, not part of the Bluetooth specification; the proof of concept uses dummy audio, with no field data on attacks against real venues.

Read the original

doi.org/10.1109/MILCOM61039.2024.10774045

Link checked . We link to the original and do not host copies.

Cited in

Cite this source

Gasteiger T, Perazzo P, Schuß M, Boano CA, Basic F, Dini G, Römer K. BACON: improving broadcast audio authentication. IEEE MILCOM 2024 (Graz University of Technology; University of Pisa). 28 October 2024. https://doi.org/10.1109/MILCOM61039.2024.10774045 (accessed 13 October 2026).

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