Breaking a chaos-noise-based secure communication scheme

This paper studies the security of a secure communication scheme based on two discrete-time intermittently-chaotic systems synchronized via a common random driving signal. Some security defects of the scheme are revealed: 1) the key space can be remarkably reduced; 2) the decryption is insensitive to the mismatch of the secret key; 3) the key-generation process is insecure against known/chosen-plaintext attacks. The first two defects mean that the scheme is not secure enough against brute-force attacks, and the third one means that an attacker can easily break the cryptosystem by approximately estimating the secret key once he has a chance to access a fragment of the generated keystream. Yet it remains to be clarified if intermittent chaos could be used for designing secure chaotic cryptosystems.Comment: RevTeX4, 11 pages, 15 figure

Fragile Watermarking using Chaotic Sequences *

Abstract I

Chaotic local search based algorithm for optimal DGPV allocation

The advent of advanced technology has led to the increase of electricity demand in most countries in the world. This phenomenon has made the power system network operate close to the stability limit. Therefore, the power utilities are looking forward to the solution to increase the loadability of the existing infrastructure. Integration of renewable energy into the grid such as Distributed Generation Photovoltaic (DGPV) can be one of the possible solutions. In this paper, Chaotic Mutation Immune Evolutionary Programming (CMIEP) algorithm is used as the optimization method while the chaotic mapping was employed in the local search for optimal location and sizing of DGPV. The chaotic local search has the capability of finding the best solution by increasing the possibility of exploring the global minima. The proposed technique was applied to the IEEE 30 Bus RTS with variation of load. The simulation results are compared with Evolutionary Programming (EP)  and it is found that CMIEP performed better in most of the cases

Observer-based chaos synchronization for secure communications

Chaos, with reference to chaos theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that, nevertheless, obeys particular laws or rules. The chaotic signals generated by chaotic systems have some properties such as randomness, complexity and sensitive dependence on initial conditions, which make them particularly suitable for secure communications. Since the 1990s, the problem of secure communication, based on chaos synchronization, has been thoroughly investigated and many methods, for instance, robust and adaptive control approaches, have been proposed to realize the chaos synchronization. However, from systems theory perspective, it may seem obvious that many robust and adaptive control methods could be considered for possible attacks against secure communication. In this thesis, we introduce the concept of secure chaos synchronization from the control theoretic view point. A new secure communication system, based on the chaos synchronization, is proposed and its security is analyzed, both theoretically and numerically

Topics in chaotic secure communication

Results in nonlinear dynamics and chaos during this decade have been applied to problems in secure communications with limited success. Most of these applications have been based on the chaotic synchronization property discovered by Pecora and Carroll in 1989 [37]. Short [44, 45, 48] demonstrated the effectiveness of nonlinear dynamic (NLD) forecasting methods in breaking this class of communication schemes. In response, investigators have proposed enhancements to the basic synchronization technique in an attempt to improve the security properties. In this work two of these newer communication systems will be analyzed using NLD forecasting and other techniques to determine the level of security they provide. It will be shown that the transmitted waveform alone allows an eavesdropper to extract the message. During the course of this research, a new impulsively initialized, binary chaotic communication scheme has been developed, which eliminates the most significant weaknesses of its predecessors. This new approach is based on symbolic dynamics and chaotic control, and may be implemented using one-dimensional maps, which gives the designer more control over the statistics of the transmitted binary stream. Recent results in a certain class of one-dimensional chaotic maps will be discussed in this context. The potential for using NLD techniques in problems from standard digital communications will also be explored. The two problems which will be addressed are bit errors due to channel effects and co-channel interference. It will be shown that NLD reconstruction methods provide a way to exploit the short-term determinism that is present in these types of communication signals

Impulsive Control and Synchronization of Chaos-Generating-Systems with Applications to Secure Communication

When two or more chaotic systems are coupled, they may exhibit synchronized chaotic oscillations. The synchronization of chaos is usually understood as the regime of chaotic oscillations in which the corresponding variables or coupled systems are equal to each other. This kind of synchronized chaos is most frequently observed in systems specifically designed to be able to produce this behaviour. In this thesis, one particular type of synchronization, called impulsive synchronization, is investigated and applied to low dimensional chaotic, hyperchaotic and spatiotemporal chaotic systems. This synchronization technique requires driving one chaotic system, called response system, by samples of the state variables of the other chaotic system, called drive system, at discrete moments. Equi-Lagrange stability and equi-attractivity in the large property of the synchronization error become our major concerns when discussing the dynamics of synchronization to guarantee the convergence of the error dynamics to zero. Sufficient conditions for equi-Lagrange stability and equi-attractivity in the large are obtained for the different types of chaos-generating systems used. The issue of robustness of synchronized chaotic oscillations with respect to parameter variations and time delay, is also addressed and investigated when dealing with impulsive synchronization of low dimensional chaotic and hyperchaotic systems. Due to the fact that it is impossible to design two identical chaotic systems and that transmission and sampling delays in impulsive synchronization are inevitable, robustness becomes a fundamental issue in the models considered. Therefore it is established, in this thesis, that under relatively large parameter perturbations and bounded delay, impulsive synchronization still shows very desired behaviour. In fact, criteria for robustness of this particular type of synchronization are derived for both cases, especially in the case of time delay, where sufficient conditions for the synchronization error to be equi-attractivity in the large, are derived and an upper bound on the delay terms is also obtained in terms of the other parameters of the systems involved. The theoretical results, described above, regarding impulsive synchronization, are reconfirmed numerically. This is done by analyzing the Lyapunov exponents of the error dynamics and by showing the simulations of the different models discussed in each case. The application of the theory of synchronization, in general, and impulsive synchronization, in particular, to communication security, is also presented in this thesis. A new impulsive cryptosystem, called induced-message cryptosystem, is proposed and its properties are investigated. It was established that this cryptosystem does not require the transmission of the encrypted signal but instead the impulses will carry the information needed for synchronization and for retrieving the message signal. Thus the security of transmission is increased and the time-frame congestion problem, discussed in the literature, is also solved. Several other impulsive cryptosystems are also proposed to accommodate more solutions to several security issues and to illustrate the different properties of impulsive synchronization. Finally, extending the applications of impulsive synchronization to employ spatiotemporal chaotic systems, generated by partial differential equations, is addressed. Several possible models implementing this approach are suggested in this thesis and few questions are raised towards possible future research work in this area

The dynamics of complex systems. Studies and applications in computer science and biology

Our research has focused on the study of complex dynamics and on their use in both information security and bioinformatics. Our first work has been on chaotic discrete dynamical systems, and links have been established between these dynamics on the one hand, and either random or complex behaviors. Applications on information security are on the pseudorandom numbers generation, hash functions, informationhiding, and on security aspects on wireless sensor networks. On the bioinformatics level, we have applied our studies of complex systems to theevolution of genomes and to protein folding