The Wiretap Channel with Feedback: Encryption over the Channel

In this work, the critical role of noisy feedback in enhancing the secrecy capacity of the wiretap channel is established. Unlike previous works, where a noiseless public discussion channel is used for feedback, the feed-forward and feedback signals share the same noisy channel in the present model. Quite interestingly, this noisy feedback model is shown to be more advantageous in the current setting. More specifically, the discrete memoryless modulo-additive channel with a full-duplex destination node is considered first, and it is shown that the judicious use of feedback increases the perfect secrecy capacity to the capacity of the source-destination channel in the absence of the wiretapper. In the achievability scheme, the feedback signal corresponds to a private key, known only to the destination. In the half-duplex scheme, a novel feedback technique that always achieves a positive perfect secrecy rate (even when the source-wiretapper channel is less noisy than the source-destination channel) is proposed. These results hinge on the modulo-additive property of the channel, which is exploited by the destination to perform encryption over the channel without revealing its key to the source. Finally, this scheme is extended to the continuous real valued modulo-$\Lambda$ channel where it is shown that the perfect secrecy capacity with feedback is also equal to the capacity in the absence of the wiretapper.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Principles of Physical Layer Security in Multiuser Wireless Networks: A Survey

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the domain of physical layer security in multiuser wireless networks. The essential premise of physical-layer security is to enable the exchange of confidential messages over a wireless medium in the presence of unauthorized eavesdroppers without relying on higher-layer encryption. This can be achieved primarily in two ways: without the need for a secret key by intelligently designing transmit coding strategies, or by exploiting the wireless communication medium to develop secret keys over public channels. The survey begins with an overview of the foundations dating back to the pioneering work of Shannon and Wyner on information-theoretic security. We then describe the evolution of secure transmission strategies from point-to-point channels to multiple-antenna systems, followed by generalizations to multiuser broadcast, multiple-access, interference, and relay networks. Secret-key generation and establishment protocols based on physical layer mechanisms are subsequently covered. Approaches for secrecy based on channel coding design are then examined, along with a description of inter-disciplinary approaches based on game theory and stochastic geometry. The associated problem of physical-layer message authentication is also introduced briefly. The survey concludes with observations on potential research directions in this area.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 303 refs. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1303.1609 by other authors. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, 201

Information-theoretic Physical Layer Security for Satellite Channels

Shannon introduced the classic model of a cryptosystem in 1949, where Eve has access to an identical copy of the cyphertext that Alice sends to Bob. Shannon defined perfect secrecy to be the case when the mutual information between the plaintext and the cyphertext is zero. Perfect secrecy is motivated by error-free transmission and requires that Bob and Alice share a secret key. Wyner in 1975 and later I.~Csisz\'ar and J.~K\"orner in 1978 modified the Shannon model assuming that the channels are noisy and proved that secrecy can be achieved without sharing a secret key. This model is called wiretap channel model and secrecy capacity is known when Eve's channel is noisier than Bob's channel. In this paper we review the concept of wiretap coding from the satellite channel viewpoint. We also review subsequently introduced stronger secrecy levels which can be numerically quantified and are keyless unconditionally secure under certain assumptions. We introduce the general construction of wiretap coding and analyse its applicability for a typical satellite channel. From our analysis we discuss the potential of keyless information theoretic physical layer security for satellite channels based on wiretap coding. We also identify system design implications for enabling simultaneous operation with additional information theoretic security protocols

Multiple Access Channels with Generalized Feedback and Confidential Messages

This paper considers the problem of secret communication over a multiple access channel with generalized feedback. Two trusted users send independent confidential messages to an intended receiver, in the presence of a passive eavesdropper. In this setting, an active cooperation between two trusted users is enabled through using channel feedback in order to improve the communication efficiency. Based on rate-splitting and decode-and-forward strategies, achievable secrecy rate regions are derived for both discrete memoryless and Gaussian channels. Results show that channel feedback improves the achievable secrecy rates.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE Information Theory Workshop on Frontiers in Coding Theory, Lake Tahoe, CA, September 2-6, 200