VERIFYING IDENTITY IDENTIFIER TRANSMITTED BY AN AERIAL VEHICLE

1 . A system, comprising:

a wireless communication receiver configured to receive a wireless signal that identifies an identifier transmitted by an aircraft; and

a processor configured to:

obtain a token value and a vehicle identifier from the received transmitted identifier;

obtain a secret corresponding to the vehicle identifier;

obtain a synchronized time value;

generate a comparison token value using the secret and the synchronized time value; and

compare the obtained token value and the generated comparison token value to determine an authenticity of the received transmitted identifier.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the identifier transmitted by the aircraft is a Service Set is Identifier (SSID) identifying a name of a wireless network.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the aircraft changes its transmitted identifier at a periodic interval using a clock associated with the synchronized time value.

4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the obtaining the token value includes extracting the token value from a specified portion of the transmitted identifier.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the obtaining the token value includes extracting the vehicle identifier from a specified portion of the transmitted identifier.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the vehicle identifier is associated with a license number for the aircraft.

7 . The system of claim 1 , wherein obtaining the secret includes querying a remote server using the obtained vehicle identifier.

8 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the secret is an encryption key.

9 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the secret is a shared secret between the aircraft and a trusted device.

10 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the synchronized time value is obtained using a clock of the system synchronized with a clock of the aircraft.

11 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the synchronized time value is obtained using a clock that was used to generate the obtained token value.

12 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the generating the comparison token value includes encrypting at least the synchronized time value.

13 . The system of claim 12 , wherein encrypting at least the synchronized time value includes hashing at least the synchronized time value.

14 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the generating the comparison token value includes combining the synchronized time value with the secret to generate a combined value and encrypting the combined value using a one way function.

15 . The system of claim 1 , wherein comparing the obtained token value and the generated is comparison token value includes determining whether the obtained token value matches the generated comparison token value.

16 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to, in response to a determination that the received transmitted identifier is authentic, establish a wireless network connection with the aircraft using the received transmitted identifier.

17 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the aircraft is an unmanned aerial vehicle.

18 . A method, comprising:

using a wireless communication receiver to receive a wireless signal that identifies an identifier transmitted by an aircraft;

obtaining a token value and a vehicle identifier from the received transmitted identifier;

obtaining a secret corresponding to the vehicle identifier;

obtaining a synchronized time value;

generating a comparison token value using the secret and the synchronized time value; and

comparing the obtained token value and the generated comparison token value to determine an authenticity of the received transmitted identifier.

19 . An aircraft system, comprising:

a processor configured to:

obtain a secret corresponding to a unique vehicle identifier for the aircraft;

obtain a synchronized time value;

generate a token value using the secret and the synchronized time value; and

combine the token value with the unique vehicle identifier to generate a combined identifier; and

a wireless communication transmitter configured to advertise the combined identifier to identify the aircraft.

20 . The system of claim 19 , wherein the processor is configured to:

determine that a time interval to transmit a new identifier has been reached;

obtain a new synchronized time value;

generate a new token value using the secret and the new synchronized time value; and

combine the new token value with the unique vehicle identifier to generate the new identifier to be transmitted.