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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics

Secure key distribution over a 200km long link employing a novel Ultra-long Fiber Lasers (UFL) scheme

Omer Kotlicki, Jacob Scheuer

Published Jan 1, 2010• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate secure key distribution over a 200km long link employing a novel ultralong fiber laser, enabling bit exchange at 0.5 kbps. Excellent immunity for both spectral and temporal eavesdropping strategies is demonstrated experimentally.
DOI
10.1364/cleo_apps.2010.atua4

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Abstract In traditional communication systems the transmission medium is considered as a given characteristic of the channel, which does not depend on the properties of the transmitter and the receiver. Recent experimental demonstrations of the feasibility of extending the laser cavity over the whole communication link connecting the two parties, forming an ultra‐long fiber laser (UFL), have raised groundbreaking possibilities in communication and particularly in secure communications. Here, a 500 km long secure key distribution link based on Raman gain UFL is demonstrated. An error‐free distribution of a random key with an average rate of 100 bps between the users is demonstrated and the key is shown to be unrecoverable to an eavesdropper employing either time or frequency domain passive attacks.
The secure distribution of a secret key is the weakest point of shared-key encryption protocols. While quantum key distribution schemes could theoretically provide unconditional security, their practical implementation remains technologically challenging. Here we provide an extended analysis and present an experimental support of a concept for a classical key generation system, based on establishing laser oscillation between two parties, which is realized using standard fiber-optic components. In our Ultra-long Fiber Laser (UFL) system, each user places a randomly chosen, spectrally selective mirror at his/her end of a fiber laser, with the two-mirror choice representing a key bit. We demonstrate the ability of each user to extract the mirror choice of the other using a simple analysis of the UFL signal, while an adversary can only reconstruct a small fraction of the key. The simplicity of this system renders it a promising alternative for practical key distribution in the optical domain.
In ultralong fiber laser key distribution, two sides use standard optical equipment to create kilometer long fiber lasers in a communication link to establish a secret key. Its security rests on the assumption that any attack to learn the generated key would be unpractical while the legitimate users only need to use standard equipment. We present a challenge to that assumption with a hidden probe attack in which the eavesdropper hides a weak signal in the unavoidable noise floor that appears in the laser during amplification and probes with it the configuration of one or both communication parties. We comment how this attack can compromise different proposals for ultralong laser key distribution and propose possible countermeasures.