A location authentication scheme based on proximity test of location tags

In the past few years, location-based mobile social network services, such as Four square and Yelp developed rapidly. To attract more users, the mobile social network service providers provide virtual or real rewards to the user who shares his or her location information in a specific position. This leads some dishonest users provide fake location information to the social network to get the rewards. In this paper, we propose a location authentication scheme based on proximity test of location tags to verify the authenticity of the location information submitted by the users. We generate the location tags by collecting the wireless signals information of the users´ current location and use it as a location verification certificate to verify the authenticity of the location information submitted by the users. By security analysis and experimental evaluation, we prove this scheme is effective in preventing location cheating in mobile social networks.