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Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers (ACSSC)

Key generation through two-way relay channels under active attacks

Heng Zhou, Lauren M. Huie, Lifeng Lai

Published Nov 1, 2013• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Most of the existing work on key generation from wireless fading channels requires a direct wireless link between legitimate users so that they can obtain correlated observations from the common wireless link. Furthermore, most of the existing work assumes that the attacker is passive. This paper studies the key generation problem in the two-way relay channel, in which there is no direct channel between the key generating terminals, under active attacks. We propose an effective key generation scheme. We also investigate the effects of the active attacker on the proposed key generation protocol. We characterize the optimal attacker's strategy that minimizes the key rate of the proposed scheme. Furthermore, we establish the maximal attacker's power under which our scheme can still achieve a non-zero key rate.

DOI
10.1109/acssc.2013.6810229

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Most of the existing work on key generation from wireless fading channels requires a direct wireless link between legitimate users so that they can obtain correlated observations from the common wireless link. Furthermore, most of the existing work assumes that the attacker is passive. This paper studies the key generation problem in the two-way relay channel, in which there is no direct channel between the key generating terminals, under active attacks. We propose an effective key generation scheme. We also investigate the effects of the active attacker on the proposed key generation protocol. We characterize the optimal attacker's strategy that minimizes the key rate of the proposed scheme. Furthermore, we establish the maximal attacker's power under which our scheme can still achieve a non-zero key rate.
Most of the existing work on key generation from wireless fading channels requires a direct wireless link between legitimate users so that they can obtain correlated observations from the common wireless link. This paper studies the key generation problem in the two-way relay channel, in which there is no direct channel between the key generating terminals. We propose an effective key generation scheme that achieves a substantially larger key rate than that of a direct channel mimic approach. Unlike existing schemes, there is no need for the key generating terminals to obtain correlated observations in our scheme. We also investigate the effects of an active attacker on the proposed key generation protocol. We characterize the optimal attacker's strategy that minimizes the key rate of the proposed scheme. Furthermore, we establish the maximal attacker's power under which our scheme can still achieve a nonzero key rate.
Most of the existing work on key generation from wireless fading channels requires a direct wireless link between legitimate users so that they can obtain correlated observations from the common wireless link. This paper studies the key generation problem in the two-way relay channel, in which there is no direct channel between the key generating terminals. We propose an effective key generation scheme that achieves a substantially larger key rate than that of a direct channel mimic approach. Unlike existing schemes, there is no need for the key generating terminals to obtain correlated observations in our scheme. We then extend our study to the case of a relay with multiple antennas. For this scenario, we derive the optimal power allocation at the relay that maximizes the key rate achieved using our protocol.
The problem of key generation over wireless fading channels is investigated. First, a joint source-channel approach that combines existing source and channel models for key agreement over wireless fading channels is developed. It is shown that, in general, to fully exploit the resources provided by time-varying channel gains, one needs to combine both the channel model, in which Alice sends a key to Bob over a wireless channel, and the source model, in which Alice and Bob generate a key by exploiting the correlated observations obtained from the wireless fading channel. Asymptotic analyses suggest that in the long coherence time regime, the channel model is asymptotically optimal. On the other hand, in the high power regime, the source model is asymptotically optimal. Second, the framework is extended to the scenario with an active attacker. Assuming that the goal of the attacker is to minimize the key rate that can be generated using the proposed protocol and the attacker will employ such an attack strategy, the attacker's optimal attack strategy is identified and the key rate under this attack model is characterized.
The problem of establishing a key over a wireless fading channel in the presence of an active attacker is considered. A key agreement protocol that combines the existing source model approach and channel model approach is adopted. First, the attacker's optimal attack strategy for this protocol is characterized. Then, the rate of the key that can be generated under this attack strategy is quantified. It is shown that, unlike the corresponding situation in wireline communications, it is possible to establish a key in the presence of an active attacker in wireless fading channels.
Most of the current research on generating a secret key from wireless fading channels relies on the channel reciprocity feature of the time division duplex link between legitimate entities so that they can acquire related information from the joint wireless connection. This paper investigates the challenge of generating a shared secret key in frequency division duplex communication systems, in which there is no reciprocity between the two nodes, in the presence of an active opponent. We suggest a key generation algorithm that depends on the product of two fading coefficients. We additionally look at the effects of an interfering adversary on the suggested key establishment scheme and solve the problem of evaluating the key rate for a scheme depending on virtual channel gain. We illustrate an adversary model using an optimal attacking strategy to minimize the rate of generating a shared secret key for our suggested algorithm. Additionally, we identify the suitable channel conditions for the non‐zero rate in the existence of an interfering adversary using simulation results.
Physical layer key generation that exploits reciprocity and randomness of wireless fading channels has attracted considerable research attention in recent years. Although theoretical study has shown its potential to generate information- theoretic secure keys, great challenges remain when transforming the theory into practice. This article provides an overview of the physical layer key generation process and discusses its practical challenges. Different passive and active attacks are analyzed and evaluated through numerical study. A new key generation scheme using random probing signals, and combining user generated randomness and channel randomness, is introduced as a countermeasure against active attacks. The numerical results show that the proposed scheme achieves higher security strength than existing schemes using constant probing signals under active attacks. Future research topics on physical layer key generation are discussed.