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IEEE Wireless Communications Letters

On Achieving Unconditional Secure Communications over Binary Symmetric Channels (BSC)

Hong Wen, Pin‐Han Ho, Xiaohong Jiang

Published Jan 11, 2012• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This paper investigates an unconditional communication model based on wiretap channel I. We will firstly review our previous study on build wiretap channel I in which the eavesdropper sees a binary symmetric channel (BSC) with error probability p while the main channel is error free. To make p as close to 0.5 as possible, the paper introduces a novel security code which helps turning the original system to achieve unconditional secure communications. Extensive simulation is conducted and the results verify our approach.

DOI
10.1109/wcl.2012.010912.110283

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A wiretap channel I is one of the channel models that was proved to achieve unconditional security. However, it has been an open problem in realizing such a channel model in a practical network environment. The paper is committed to solve the open problem by introducing a novel approach for building wiretap channel I in which the eavesdropper sees a binary symmetric channel (BSC) with error probability p while the main channel is error free. By taking advantage of the feedback and low density parity check (LDPC) codes, our scheme adds randomness to the feedback signals from the destination for keeping an eavesdropper ignorant; on the other hand, redundancy is added and encoded by the LDPC codes such that a legitimate receiver can correctly receive and decode the signals. With the proposed approach, unconditionally-secure communication can be achieved through interactive communications, in which the legitimate partner can realize the secret information transmission without a pre-shared secret key even if the eavesdropper has better channel from the beginning.

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This paper investigates an unconditional communication model based on wiretap channel I. We will firstly review our previous study on build wiretap channel I in which the eavesdropper sees a binary symmetric channel (BSC) with error probability p while the main channel is error free. To make p as close to 0.5 as possible, the paper introduces a novel security code which helps turning the original system to achieve unconditional secure communications. Extensive simulation is conducted and the results verify our approach.
A wiretap channel I is one of the channel models that was proved to achieve unconditional security. However, it has been an open problem in realizing such a channel model in a practical network environment. The paper is committed to solve the open problem by introducing a novel approach for building wiretap channel I in which the eavesdropper sees a binary symmetric channel (BSC) with error probability p while the main channel is error free. By taking advantage of the feedback and low density parity check (LDPC) codes, our scheme adds randomness to the feedback signals from the destination for keeping an eavesdropper ignorant; on the other hand, redundancy is added and encoded by the LDPC codes such that a legitimate receiver can correctly receive and decode the signals. With the proposed approach, unconditionally-secure communication can be achieved through interactive communications, in which the legitimate partner can realize the secret information transmission without a pre-shared secret key even if the eavesdropper has better channel from the beginning.
Due to the broadcast nature, wireless links are open to malicious intrusions from outsiders, which makes the security issues a critical concern in the wireless communicationsover them. Physical-layer security techniques, which are based on the Shannon’s unconditional secrecy model, are effective in addressing the security issue while meeting the required performance level. According to the Wyner’s wiretap channel model, to achieve unconditionally security communication, the first step is to build up a wiretap channel with better channel quality between the legitimate communication peers than that of the eavesdropper; and the second step is to employ a robust security code to ensure that the legitimate users experience negligible errors while the eavesdropper is subject to 0.5 error probability. \nMotivated by this idea, in this thesis, we build wiretap channels for the single antenna systems without resorting to the spatial degree in commonly observed the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Firstly, to build effective wiretap channels, we design a novel scheme, called multi-round two-way communications (MRTWC). By taking feedback mechanisms into the design of Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes, our scheme adds randomness to the feedback signals from the destination to keep the eavesdropper ignorant while adding redundancy with the LDPC codes so that the legitimate receiver can correctly receive and decode the signals. Then, the channel BERs are specifically quantified according to the crossover probability in the case of Binary Symmetric Channel (BSC), or the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) in the case of AWGN and Rayleigh channels. Thus, the novel scheme can be utilized to address the security and reliability. Meanwhile, we develop a cross-layer approach to building the wiretap channel, which is suitable for high dynamic scenarios. By taking advantage of multiple parameters freedom in the discrete fractional Fourier transform (DFRFT) for single antenna systems, the proposed scheme introduces a distortion parameter instead of a general signal parameter for wireless networks based on DFRFT. The transmitter randomly flip-flops the uses of the distortion parameter and the general signal parameter to confuse the eavesdropper. An upper-layer cipher sequence will be employed to control the flip-flops. This cryptographic sequence in the higher layer is combined with the physical layer security scheme with random parameter fipping in DFRFT to guarantee security advantages over the main communication channel. \nAs the efforts on the second step, this thesis introduces a novel approach to generate security codes, which can be used for encoding with low complexity by taking advantage of a matrix general inverse algorithm. The novel constructions of the security codes are based on binary and non-binary resilient functions. With the proposed security codes, we prove that our novel security codes can ensure 0.5 error probability seen by the wiretapper while close to zero by the intended receiver if the error probability of the wiretapper’s channel is over a derived threshold. Therefore, the unconditionally secure communication of legitimate partners can be guaranteed. It has been proved mathematically that the non-binary security codes could achieve closer to the security capacity bound than any other reported short-length security codes under BSC. \nFinally, we develop the framework of associating the wiretap channel building approach with the security codes. The advantages between legitimate partners are extended via developing the security codes on top of our cross-layer DFRFT and feedback MRTWC security communication model. In this way, the proposed system could ensure almost zero information obtained by the eavesdroppers while still keeping rather lower error transmissions for legitimate users. Extensive experiments are carried out to verify the proposed security schemes and demonstrate the feasibility and implement ability. An USRP testbed is also constructed, under which the physical layer security mechanisms are implemented and tested. Our study shows that our proposed security schemes can be implemented in practical communications settings.
Suppose Alice wishes to send messages to Bob through a communication channel C_1, but her transmissions also reach an eavesdropper Eve through another channel C_2. The goal is to design a coding scheme that makes it possible for Alice to communicate both reliably and securely. Reliability is measured in terms of Bob's probability of error in recovering the message, while security is measured in terms of Eve's equivocation ratio. Wyner showed that the situation is characterized by a single constant C_s, called the secrecy capacity, which has the following meaning: for all ε>0ε> 0ε>0, there exist coding schemes of rate R≥Cs−εR \ge C_s - εR≥Cs​−ε that asymptotically achieve both the reliability and the security objectives. However, his proof of this result is based upon a nonconstructive random-coding argument. To date, despite a considerable research effort, the only case where we know how to construct coding schemes that achieve secrecy capacity is when Eve's channel C_2 is an erasure channel, or a combinatorial variation thereof. Polar codes were recently invented by Arikan; they approach the capacity of symmetric binary-input discrete memoryless channels with low encoding and decoding complexity. Herein, we use polar codes to construct a coding scheme that achieves the secrecy capacity for a wide range of wiretap channels. Our construction works for any instantiation of the wiretap channel model, as long as both C_1 and C_2 are symmetric and binary-input, and C_2 is degraded with respect to C_1. Moreover, we show how to modify our construction in order to provide strong security, in the sense defined by Maurer, while still operating at a rate that approaches the secrecy capacity. In this case, we cannot guarantee that the reliability condition will be satisfied unless the main channel C_1 is noiseless, although we believe it can be always satisfied in practice.
With the advent of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems, perfect (i.e. information-theoretic) security can now be achieved for distribution of a cryptographic key. QKD systems and similar protocols use classical errorcorrecting codes for both error correction (for the honest p arties to correct errors) and privacy amplification (to make an eavesdropper fully ignorant). From a coding perspective, a good model for such a setting is the wire tap channel introduced by Wyner in 1975. In this paper, we study fundamental limits and coding methods for wire tap channels. We provide a novel proof for the secrecy capacity theorem for wire tap channels and show how capacity achieving codes can be used to achieve the secrecy capacity for any wiretap channel. We also consider binary erasure channel and binary symmetric channel special cases for the wiretap channel and propose specific practical codes. In some cases our designs achieve the secrecy capacity and in others the codes provide complete security at rates below secrecy capacity in some specific cases.
In this paper, a new wiretap channel model is proposed, where the legitimate transmitter and receiver communicate over a discrete memoryless channel. The wiretapper has perfect access to a fixed-length subset of the transmitted code word symbols of her choosing. Additionally, she observes the remainder of the transmitted symbols through a discrete memoryless channel. This new model subsumes the classical wiretap channel and wiretap channel II with noisy main channel as its special cases, and is termed as the generalized wiretap channel for that reason. The strong secrecy capacity of the proposed channel model is identified. Achievability is established by solving a dual secret key agreement problem in the source model, and converting the solution to the original channel model using probability distribution approximation arguments. In the dual problem, a source encoder and decoder, who observe random sequences independent and identically distributed according to the input and output distributions of the legitimate channel in the original problem, communicate a confidential key over a public error-free channel using a single forward transmission, in the presence of a compound wiretapping source who has perfect access to the public discussion. The security of the key is guaranteed for the exponentially many possibilities of the subset chosen at the wiretapper by deriving a lemma which provides a doubly-exponential convergence rate for the probability that, for a fixed choice of the subset, the key is uniform and independent from the public discussion and the wiretapping source's observation. The converse is derived by using Sanov's theorem to upper bound the secrecy capacity of the generalized wiretap channel by the secrecy capacity when the tapped subset is randomly chosen by nature.
With the advent of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems, perfect (i.e. information-theoretic) security can now be achieved for distribution of a cryptographic key. QKD systems and similar protocols use classical error-correcting codes for both error correction (for the honest parties to correct errors) and privacy amplification (to make an eavesdropper fully ignorant). From a coding perspective, a good model for such a setting is the wire tap channel system introduced by Wyner in 1975. In this paper, we study fundamental limits and coding methods for wire tap channel systems. We provide a novel proof for the secrecy capacity theorem for wire tap channels and show how capacity achieving codes can be used to achieve the secrecy capacity for any wiretap channel. We also consider binary erasure channel and binary symmetric channel special cases for the wiretap channel system and propose specific practical codes. In some cases our designs achieve the secrecy capacity and in others the codes provide complete security at rates below secrecy capacity in some specific cases.