Modified X10 Security

One of the weaknesses of the X10 technology is that the signal can propagate outside of the home which means that there is a very real possibility that someone can eavesdrop on transmissions. Additionally, most home also include exterior power connections. This means that adversaries can view the X10 communication originating from inside home by plugging into one of the power line or signal channel.  

The origination of X10 packet format consists of preamble, followed by a 4-bit house code, the 4-bit data Unit and House Code. However, the different of original is the “Extended data” which is used for sending command as figure shown below. This command was put into the X10 as a way for devices to receive more data than just a signal command.

Then, the modified of X10 which is called ModX10 contain several important fields that are totally differed from the standard X10.  The most of the important fields for improving security on X10 technology is the Pseudo Random Value (PRV). The PRV was designed to be a different number every time a new message is transmitted, and then every time a device receives a transmission, the device will generate the next random number. If a transmission is lost the random number in the next transmission will be different from the number that the device has generated and the system will have fallen out of synchronization. Therefore, there will be additional handshaking after the original transmission that is used for synchronization and error detection.      

 

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