VeriPlace: A Privacy-Aware Location Proof Architecture

Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of
location-based services, with services like Foursquare or Yelp having
hundreds of thousands of users.  A user's location is a crucial factor
for enabling these services.  Many services rely on users to correctly
report their location.  However, if there is an incentive, users might
lie about their location.  A location proof architecture enables users
to collect proofs for being at a location and services to validate
these proofs.  It is essential that this proof collection and
validation does not violate user privacy.  We introduce VeriPlace, a
location proof architecture with user privacy as a key design
component.  In addition, VeriPlace can detect cheating users who
collect proofs for places where they are not located.  We also present
an implementation and a performance evaluation of VeriPlace and its
integration with Yelp.