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arXiv:1811.06591 · International Conference on Communications

Physical-Layer Security: Does it Work in a Real Environment?

Benjamin Jensen, Bradford Clark, Dakota Flanary, Kalin Norman, Michael David Rice, Willie K. Harrison

Published May 1, 2019• 9 citations
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Abstract

This paper applies channel sounding measurements to enable physical-layer security coding. The channel measurements were acquired in an indoor environment and used to assess the secrecy capacity as a function of physical location. A variety of Reed-Muller wiretap codes were applied to the channel measurements to determine the most effective code for the environment. The results suggest that deploying physical-layer security coding is a three-point design process, where channel sounding data guides 1) the physical placement of the antennas, 2) the power settings of the transmitter, and 3) the selection of wiretap coding.

DOI
10.1109/icc.2019.8761418

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This paper applies channel sounding measurements to enable physical-layer security coding. The channel measurements were acquired in an indoor environment and used to assess the secrecy capacity as a function of physical location. A variety of Reed-Muller wiretap codes were applied to the channel measurements to determine the most effective code for the environment. The results suggest that deploying physical-layer security coding is a three-point design process, where channel sounding data guides 1) the physical placement of the antennas, 2) the power settings of the transmitter, and 3) the selection of wiretap coding.
Many physical-layer security works in the literature rely on purely theoretical work or simulated results to establish the value of physical-layer security in securing communications. We consider the secrecy capacity of a wireless Gaussian wiretap channel using channel sounding measurements to analyze the potential for secure communication in a real-world scenario. A multi-input, multi-output, multi-eavesdropper (MIMOME) system is deployed using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) over an 802.11n wireless network. Channel state information (CSI) measurements were taken in an indoor environment to analyze time-varying scenarios and spatial variations. It is shown that secrecy capacity is highly affected by environmental changes, such as foot traffic, network congestion, and propagation characteristics of the physical environment. We also present a numerical method for calculating MIMOME secrecy capacity in general and comment on the use of OFDM with regard to calculating secrecy capacity.
In this paper we provide a real-world test of physical-layer security using channel sounding techniques in an indoor wireless network. We consider the possibility of exploiting issues that arise in practical receivers to manufacture a discrete memoryless wiretap channel model from the Gaussian case, and show how the secrecy capacity of the Gaussian wiretap channel model changes as these issues are considered. Results indicate that the secrecy capacity is a function of the manufactured channel model, physical antenna location, and power settings at the transmitter. These parameters can be optimized to maximize the potential for secrecy in the network.
In this paper, we investigate the application of Reed-Muller (RM) codes for Physical-layer security in a real world wiretap channel scenario. Utilizing software-defined radios (SDRs) in a real indoor environment, we implement a coset coding scheme that leverages the hierarchical structure of RM codes to secure data transmission. The generator matrix of the RM code is used to partition codewords into cosets in the usual way, where each message corresponds to a unique coset, and auxiliary bits select specific codewords within each coset. This approach enables the legitimate receiver (Bob) can decode the transmitted message with minimal information leakage to eavesdropper (Eve) thus protecting the confidentiality of the communication with the help of coset structure. Mutual information neural estimation (MINE) is used to quantify information leakage and validate the effectiveness of the scheme. Experimental results indicate that RM codes can achieve robust security even in practical environments affected by real-world channel impairments. These findings demonstrate the potential of RM codes as an efficient solution for physical-layer security, particularly for applications that require low latency and short blocklengths.
Location information has been shown to be useful for a wide variety of applications in wireless networks, while its role in physical layer security has so far drawn little attention. In this work, we propose a new location-based secure transmission scheme for wiretap channels, where the accurate locations of the sources, destinations and any other authorized transceivers are known, but only an estimate of the eavesdropper's location is available. We outline how such an estimate of the eavesdropper's location can still allow for quantitative assessment of key security metrics. To provide focus, we describe how optimization of the effective secrecy throughput of a relay wiretap channel is obtained in our scheme, and investigate in detail the impact of the location uncertainty on the system performance. The work reported here provides insights into the design of new location-based physical layer security schemes in which the only information available on an eavesdropper is a noisy estimate of her location.
Due to the malicious attacks in wireless networks, physical layer security has attracted increasing concerns from both academia and industry. The research on physical layer security mainly focuses either on the secrecy capacity/achievable secrecy rate/capacity-equivocation region from the perspective of information theory, or on the security designs from the viewpoints of optimization and signal processing. Because of its importance in security designs, the latter research direction is surveyed in a comprehensive way in this paper. The survey begins with typical wiretap channel models to cover common scenarios and systems. The topics on physical-layer security designs are then summarized from resource allocation, beamforming/precoding, and antenna/node selection and cooperation. Based on the aforementioned schemes, the performance metrics and fundamental optimization problems are discussed, which are generally adopted in security designs. Thereafter, the state of the art of optimization approaches on each research topic of physical layer security is reviewed from four categories of optimization problems, such as secrecy rate maximization, secrecy outrage probability minimization, power consumption minimization, and secure energy efficiency maximization. Furthermore, the impacts of channel state information on optimization and design are discussed. Finally, the survey concludes with the observations on potential future directions and open challenges.
Physical-layer security is desirable for visible light communication (VLC) in order to hide information from unauthorized receivers, without reliance on upper-layer encryption. In this paper, we propose a physical-layer secure coding scheme based on polar codes to achieve secrecy capacity of indoor VLC under Wyner's wiretap model. Compared with the beamforming approach requiring multiple-input, single-output (MISO) VLC, the proposed scheme can obtain security and reliability simultaneously for indoor single-input, single-output (SISO) VLC with binary-input discrete memoryless channels (BDMCs). Numerical results show that when the wiretap channel is degraded with respect to the main channel, the secrecy capacity can be asymptotically achieved to transmit the secret information.