1,054 research outputs found
Covert Bits Through Queues
We consider covert communication using a queuing timing channel in the
presence of a warden. The covert message is encoded using the inter-arrival
times of the packets, and the legitimate receiver and the warden observe the
inter-departure times of the packets from their respective queues. The
transmitter and the legitimate receiver also share a secret key to facilitate
covert communication. We propose achievable schemes that obtain non-zero covert
rate for both exponential and general queues when a sufficiently high rate
secret key is available. This is in contrast to other channel models such as
the Gaussian channel or the discrete memoryless channel where only
covert bits can be sent over channel uses, yielding
a zero covert rate.Comment: To appear at IEEE CNS, October 201
Towards Provably Invisible Network Flow Fingerprints
Network traffic analysis reveals important information even when messages are
encrypted. We consider active traffic analysis via flow fingerprinting by
invisibly embedding information into packet timings of flows. In particular,
assume Alice wishes to embed fingerprints into flows of a set of network input
links, whose packet timings are modeled by Poisson processes, without being
detected by a watchful adversary Willie. Bob, who receives the set of
fingerprinted flows after they pass through the network modeled as a collection
of independent and parallel queues, wishes to extract Alice's embedded
fingerprints to infer the connection between input and output links of the
network. We consider two scenarios: 1) Alice embeds fingerprints in all of the
flows; 2) Alice embeds fingerprints in each flow independently with probability
. Assuming that the flow rates are equal, we calculate the maximum number of
flows in which Alice can invisibly embed fingerprints while having those
fingerprints successfully decoded by Bob. Then, we extend the construction and
analysis to the case where flow rates are distinct, and discuss the extension
of the network model
Bits through queues with feedback
In their paper Anantharam and Verd\'u showed that feedback does not
increase the capacity of a queue when the service time is exponentially
distributed. Whether this conclusion holds for general service times has
remained an open question which this paper addresses.
Two main results are established for both the discrete-time and the
continuous-time models. First, a sufficient condition on the service
distribution for feedback to increase capacity under FIFO service policy.
Underlying this condition is a notion of weak feedback wherein instead of the
queue departure times the transmitter is informed about the instants when
packets start to be served. Second, a condition in terms of output entropy rate
under which feedback does not increase capacity. This condition is general in
that it depends on the output entropy rate of the queue but explicitly depends
neither on the queue policy nor on the service time distribution. This
condition is satisfied, for instance, by queues with LCFS service policies and
bounded service times
Plugging Side-Channel Leaks with Timing Information Flow Control
The cloud model's dependence on massive parallelism and resource sharing
exacerbates the security challenge of timing side-channels. Timing Information
Flow Control (TIFC) is a novel adaptation of IFC techniques that may offer a
way to reason about, and ultimately control, the flow of sensitive information
through systems via timing channels. With TIFC, objects such as files,
messages, and processes carry not just content labels describing the ownership
of the object's "bits," but also timing labels describing information contained
in timing events affecting the object, such as process creation/termination or
message reception. With two system design tools-deterministic execution and
pacing queues-TIFC enables the construction of "timing-hardened" cloud
infrastructure that permits statistical multiplexing, while aggregating and
rate-limiting timing information leakage between hosted computations.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
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