3 research outputs found
The Embedding Capacity of Information Flows Under Renewal Traffic
Given two independent point processes and a certain rule for matching points
between them, what is the fraction of matched points over infinitely long
streams? In many application contexts, e.g., secure networking, a meaningful
matching rule is that of a maximum causal delay, and the problem is related to
embedding a flow of packets in cover traffic such that no traffic analysis can
detect it. We study the best undetectable embedding policy and the
corresponding maximum flow rate ---that we call the embedding capacity--- under
the assumption that the cover traffic can be modeled as arbitrary renewal
processes. We find that computing the embedding capacity requires the inversion
of very structured linear systems that, for a broad range of renewal models
encountered in practice, admits a fully analytical expression in terms of the
renewal function of the processes. Our main theoretical contribution is a
simple closed form of such relationship. This result enables us to explore
properties of the embedding capacity, obtaining closed-form solutions for
selected distribution families and a suite of sufficient conditions on the
capacity ordering. We evaluate our solution on real network traces, which shows
a noticeable match for tight delay constraints. A gap between the predicted and
the actual embedding capacities appears for looser constraints, and further
investigation reveals that it is caused by inaccuracy of the renewal traffic
model rather than of the solution itself.Comment: Sumbitted to IEEE Trans. on Information Theory on March 10, 201