For bi-directional communication, the most general form of encoders should consider the signals received in the past as inputs. However, in practice, it would also be highly desirable if feedback could be ignored for encoding purposes since this would lead to a simple system design. In this work, we investigate the question of whether and how much loss in secrecy rate would be incurred, if such an approach were taken. To do so, we investigate the role of feedback in secrecy for two three-node two-way channel models. First, we show that feedback is indeed useful for a class of full-duplex two-way wire-tap channels. In this case, when feedback is ignored, the channel is equivalent to a Gaussian degraded relay channel with confidential messages to the relay. The usefulness of feedback is demonstrated by deriving an upper bound for this channel when feedback is ignored, and then proving that, when feedback is used, a secrecy rate higher than this upper bound is achievable. Secondly, we consider the half-duplex Gaussian two-way relay channel where there is an eavesdropper co-located with the relay node, and find that the impact of feedback is less pronounced compared to the previous scenario. Specifically, the loss in secrecy rate, when ignoring the feedback, is quantified to be less than 0.5 bit per channel use when the power of the relay goes to infinity. We also show that this rate region is achievable under a simple time sharing scheme with cooperative jamming, which, with its simplicity and near-optimum performance, is a viable alternative to an encoder using feedback.
For bi-directional communication, the most general form of encoders should consider the signals received in the past as inputs. However, in practice, it would also be highly desirable if feedback could be ignored for encoding purposes since this would lead to a simple system design. In this work, we investigate the question of whether and how much loss in secrecy rate would be incurred, if such an approach were taken. To do so, we investigate the role of feedback in secrecy for two three-node two-way channel models. First, we show that feedback is indeed useful for a class of full-duplex two-way wire-tap channels. In this case, when feedback is ignored, the channel is equivalent to a Gaussian degraded relay channel with confidential messages to the relay. The usefulness of feedback is demonstrated by deriving an upper bound for this channel when feedback is ignored, and then proving that, when feedback is used, a secrecy rate higher than this upper bound is achievable. Secondly, we consider the half-duplex Gaussian two-way relay channel where there is an eavesdropper co-located with the relay node, and find that the impact of feedback is less pronounced compared to the previous scenario. Specifically, the loss in secrecy rate, when ignoring the feedback, is quantified to be less than 0.5 bit per channel use when the power of the relay goes to infinity. We also show that this rate region is achievable under a simple time sharing scheme with cooperative jamming, which, with its simplicity and near-optimum performance, is a viable alternative to an encoder using feedback.
Most practical communication links are bidirectional. In these models, since the source node also receives signals, its encoder has the option of computing its output based on the signals it received in the past. On the other hand, from a practical point of view, it would also be desirable to identify the cases where such an encoder design may not improve communication rates. This question is particularly interesting for the case where the transmitted messages and the feedback signals are subject to eavesdropping. In this paper, we investigate the question of how much impact the feedback has on the secrecy capacity by studying two fundamental models. First, we consider the Gaussian two-way wiretap channel and derive an outer bound for its secrecy capacity region. We show that the secrecy rate loss can be unbounded when feedback signals are not utilized except for a special case we identify, and thus conclude that utilizing feedback can be highly beneficial in general. Second, we consider a half-duplex Gaussian two-way relay channel where the relay node is also an eavesdropper, and find that the impact of feedback is less pronounced compared to the previous scenario. Specifically, the loss in secrecy rate, when ignoring the feedback, is quantified to be less than 0.5 bit per channel use when the relay power goes to infinity. This achievable rate region is obtained with simple time sharing along with cooperative jamming, which, with its simplicity and near optimum performance, is a viable alternative to an encoder that utilizes feedback signals.
We investigate the fundamental communication limits when messages are sent via a Gaussian two-way channel, which must at the same time be kept secret from an external eavesdropper. In this two-way wiretap channel that models two legitimate transceivers and an eavesdropping receiver, there are two techniques to provide confidentiality for the messages: one entails the legitimate nodes to jam the eavesdropper, i.e., cooperative jamming, while the other entails generating keys from the feedback signals received by the two legitimate nodes and using them to encrypt the messages. Previous work has shown that both methods can be used concurrently to improve the secrecy rates of a channel with a degradedness condition. In this work, we consider the general case, and derive a new outer bound for the secrecy capacity region of this channel. A case is identified where the loss in secrecy rate, due to ignoring the backward (feedback) link at each legitimate transmitter from the other, is bounded by a constant which only depends on the channel gains. This is the case when the power of the two legitimate nodes increases proportionally. In all other cases, we show that ignoring feedback signals causes unbounded loss in the secrecy rate. The loss is measured as the gap between the achievable rate when the feedback signals are taken into account, and the upper bound when the feedback is not used, and hence is not affected by the choice of the achievable scheme. This result therefore establishes that, for the Gaussian two-way channel with an external eavesdropper, the encoders need to be designed with memory. This is in contrast to the result for this channel in the absence of an eavesdropper.
We consider the communication scenario where a source-destination pair wishes to keep the information secret from a relay node despite wanting to enlist its help. For this scenario, an interesting question is whether the relay node should be deployed at all. That is, whether cooperation with an untrusted relay node can ever be beneficial. We first provide an achievable secrecy rate for the general untrusted relay channel, and proceed to investigate this question for two types of relay networks with orthogonal components. For the first model, there is an orthogonal link from the source to the relay. For the second model, there is an orthogonal link from the relay to the destination. For the first model, we find the equivocation capacity region and show that answer is negative. In contrast, for the second model, we find that the answer is positive. Specifically, we show, by means of the achievable secrecy rate based on compress-and-forward, that by asking the untrusted relay node to relay information, we can achieve a higher secrecy rate than just treating the relay as an eavesdropper. For a special class of the second model, where the relay is not interfering itself, we derive an upper bound for the secrecy rate using an argument whose net effect is to separate the eavesdropper from the relay. The merit of the new upper bound is demonstrated on two channels that belong to this special class. The Gaussian case of the second model mentioned above benefits from this approach in that the new upper bound improves the previously known bounds. For the Cover-Kim deterministic relay channel, the new upper bound finds the secrecy capacity when the source-destination link is not worse than the source-relay link, by matching with achievable rate we present.
We consider a source-destination pair that can communicate only through an unauthenticated intermediate relay node. In this two-hop communication scenario, where the cooperation from the relay node is essential, we investigate whether achieving non-zero secrecy rate is possible. Specifically, we treat the relay node as an eavesdropper from whom the source information needs to be kept secret, despite the fact that its cooperation in relaying this information is needed. We find that a positive secrecy rate is indeed achievable, with the aid of the destination node or an external node that jams the relay, i.e., by cooperative jamming. We derive an upper bound on the secrecy rate by means of an eavesdropper-relay separation argument. We remark that this upper bound is the first of its kind in Gaussian channels with cooperative jamming. The upper bound is strictly smaller than the channel capacity without secrecy constraints. The achievable secrecy rates are found using stochastic encoding and compress-and-forward at the relay. Numerical results show that the gap between the bound and the achievable rate is small when the relay's power is larger than the power of the jammer and the source. In essence, this paper shows that a cooperative jammer enables secure communication to take place using an untrusted relay which would be otherwise impossible.
With the rapid development of wireless communications, security becomes extremely important. In many applications, each transmitter desires to send independent and confidential message to its intended receiver while ensuring mutual information-theoretic secrecy. In this dissertation, I study strategies for enhanced secrecy in wireless communication systems with limited rate feedback and transmitter cooperation. The two-user Gaussian channel model is considered under different scenarios. The transmitters both require channel state information (CSI), which is quantized at the receiver and fed back through the sum-rate-limited feedback channels. The quantization errors reduce the beamforming gain from the direct transmitter, and cause interference leakage from the cross transmitter. In the first scenario, I introduce the wiretap channel model where one receiver is a known eavesdropper, and a second transmitter is used to send a cooperative jamming signal to degrade the eavesdropper's channel. I consider two cases, one where no information about the eavesdroppers is available, and one where statistical CSI is available. With no information about the eavesdroppers, I show how to choose the allocation of feedback bits to the transmitters in order to maximize the amount of jamming power available to interfere with the eavesdroppers, subject to maintaining the lower bound on the rate at a minimum quality-of-service level. For the case of statistical CSI, I derive an approximate lower bound on the average secrecy rate, and optimize the bound to find a suitable bit allocation and the transmit power allocated to the transmitters. In the second scenario, I consider the interference channel model where the two transmitters are amenable to cooperation for improving the overall secrecy performance of the system. I derive an approximation for the average secrecy rate of each link, and optimize the sum secrecy rate over the transmit power and feedback bits allocated to the transmitters. Interestingly, increasing the transmit power beyond a certain point decreases the secrecy performance. When the transmitters have the same number of antennas, I derive the results in closed form. Simulations validate the theoretical analysis and demonstrate the significant performance gains that result from the use of optimal transmit power control and intelligent feedback bit allocation.
In this paper, the one-sided secrecy of two-way wiretap channel with feedback is investigated, where the confidential messages of one user through multiple transmissions is guaranteed secure against an external eavesdropper. For one thing, one-sided secrecy satisfies the secure demand of many practical scenarios. For another, the secrecy is measured over many blocks since the correlation between eavesdropper's observation and the confidential messages in successive blocks, instead of secrecy measurement of one block in previous works. Thus, firstly, an achievable secrecy rate region is derived for the general two-way wiretap channel with feedback through multiple transmissions under one-sided secrecy. Secondly, outer bounds on the secrecy capacity region are also obtained. The gap between inner and outer bounds on the secrecy capacity region is explored via the binary input two-way wiretap channels. Most notably, the secrecy capacity regions are established for the XOR channel. Furthermore, the result shows that the achievable rate region with feedback is larger than that without feedback. Therefore, the benefit role of feedback is precisely characterized for two-way wiretap channel with feedback under one-sided secrecy.