A usual concern against physical layer security is that the legitimate parties would need to have (partial) channel state information (CSI) of the eavesdropper in order to design transmission schemes that provide secrecy. In this work, to overcome this concern, we consider the model where the eavesdropper's CSI is completely unknown at the legitimate transmitter(s) and the receiver. A static channel setting, and multiple antennas are considered for all parties, and it is assumed that the eavesdropper has perfect self-CSI. In this setting, assuming that the legitimate parties can employ a larger number of antennas than the eavesdropper, we provide a positive secure communication rate in the sense of strong secrecy. The achievable (guaranteed) secrecy rate we derive for the MIMO wiretap channel matches its converse in terms of secure degrees of freedom. As a side result of our approach, we also derive the secure degrees of freedom region for the MIMO MAC-wiretap channel where the transmitters and the intended receiver have the same number of antennas.
A usual concern against physical layer security is that the legitimate parties would need to have (partial) channel state information (CSI) of the eavesdropper in order to design transmission schemes that provide secrecy. In this work, to overcome this concern, we consider the model where the eavesdropper's CSI is completely unknown at the legitimate transmitter(s) and the receiver. A static channel setting, and multiple antennas are considered for all parties, and it is assumed that the eavesdropper has perfect self-CSI. In this setting, assuming that the legitimate parties can employ a larger number of antennas than the eavesdropper, we provide a positive secure communication rate in the sense of strong secrecy. The achievable (guaranteed) secrecy rate we derive for the MIMO wiretap channel matches its converse in terms of secure degrees of freedom. As a side result of our approach, we also derive the secure degrees of freedom region for the MIMO MAC-wiretap channel where the transmitters and the intended receiver have the same number of antennas.
In this paper, a class of information theoretic secrecy problems is addressed where the eavesdropper channel state is completely unknown to the legitimate parties. In particular, a Gaussian MIMO wiretap channel is considered, where the eavesdropper channel state can vary from one channel use to the next, and the overall channel state sequence is known only to the eavesdropper. When the eavesdropper has fewer antennas than the transmitter and its intended receiver, a positive secrecy rate in the sense of strong secrecy is proved to be achievable and shown to match with the converse in secure degrees of freedom. This yields the conclusion that secure communication is possible regardless of the location or channel states of the eavesdropper. Additionally, it is observed that, the present setting renders the secrecy capacity problems for some multiterminal wiretap-type channels more tractable as compared to the case with full or partial knowledge of eavesdropper channel states. To demonstrate this observation, secure degrees of freedom regions are derived for the Gaussian MIMO multiple access (MAC) wiretap channel and the two-user Gaussian MIMO broadcast (BC) wiretap channel, where the transmitter(s) and intended receiver(s) have the same number of antennas.
In this work, a class of information theoretic secrecy problems is addressed where the eavesdropper channel states are completely unknown to the legitimate parties. In particular, MIMO wiretap channel models are considered where the channel of the eavesdropper is arbitrarily varying over time. Assuming that the number of antennas of the eavesdropper is limited, the secrecy rate of the MIMO wiretap channel in the sense of strong secrecy is derived, and shown to match with the converse in secure degrees of freedom. It is proved that there exists a universal coding scheme that secures the confidential message against any sequence of channel states experienced by the eavesdropper. This yields the conclusion that secure communication is possible regardless of the location or channel states of (potentially infinite number of) eavesdroppers. Additionally, it is observed that, the present setting renders the secrecy capacity problems for multi-terminal wiretap-type channels more tractable as compared the case with full or partial knowledge of eavesdropper channel states. To demonstrate this observation, secure degrees of freedom regions are derived for the Gaussian MIMO multiple access wiretap channel (MIMO MAC-WT) and the Gaussian MIMO broadcast wiretap channel (MIMO BC-WT) where the transmitter(s) and the intended receiver(s) have the same number of antennas.
This chapter considers securing wireless communications at the physical layer using multiple antennas. In particular, the multiple antenna (MIMO) wiretap channel is presented and its secrecy capacity is provided. Further investigation of the high-SNR characterization of the secrecy capacity, i.e., secure degrees of freedom, reveals that the secrecy capacity of the MIMO wiretap channel does not scale with the transmit power when the eavesdropper has an advantage over the legitimate transmitter in the number of antennas. An external multi-antenna cooperative jammer terminal is introduced to the channel model in order to improve its secrecy capacity scaling with power. The secure degrees of freedom for this new multi-terminal multi-antenna channel is characterized. While for these models the eavesdropper channel state information is known at the legitimate terminals, the chapter next removes this assumption and presents results that utilize multiple antennas in order to provide secure communications irrespective of the eavesdropper channel state. An achievable strong secrecy rate and the secure degrees of freedom characterization for the MIMO wiretap channel when the eavesdropper channel is arbitrary, varying, and unknown at the legitimate terminals are presented. Finally, the extension of this model to the two-user multiple access MIMO wiretap channel is considered and its secure degrees of freedom region is characterized. Introduction The wiretap channel and the notion of secrecy capacity, introduced in [1] and generalized by [2], have provided the framework for physical layer design for wireless channels with information theoretic guarantees against eavesdropping. A natural model in wireless communications is one which utilizes multiple antennas for transmission and reception at each node. The improvement in secrecy rate that can be obtained using multiple antennas in a point-to-point channel with an eavesdropper has been studied extensively in several references, including [3, 4]. Specifically, the secrecy capacity of the Gaussian model consisting of a multiple antenna legitimate transmitter, a multiple antenna legitimate receiver, and a multiple antenna eavesdropper, termed the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wiretap channel, has been identified in full generality in [5, 6].
We consider two fundamental multi-user channel models: the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wiretap channel with one helper (WTH) and the MIMO multiple access wiretap (MAC-WT) channel. In each case, the eavesdropper has K antennas while the remaining terminals have N antennas each. We consider a fast fading channel where the channel state information (CSI) of the legitimate receiver is available at the transmitters but no CSI at the transmitters (CSIT) is available for the eavesdropper's channel. We determine the optimal sum secure degrees of freedom (s.d.o.f.) for each channel model for the regime K ≤ N, and show that in this regime, the MAC-WT channel reduces to the WTH in the absence of eavesdropper CSIT. For the regime N ≤ K ≤ 2N, we obtain the optimal linear s.d.o.f., and show that the MAC-WT channel and the WTH have the same optimal s.d.o.f. when restricted to linear encoding strategies. In the absence of any such restrictions, we provide an upper bound for the sum s.d.o.f. of the MAC-WT channel in the regime N ≤ K ≤ 2N. Our results show that unlike in the single-input single-output case, there is loss of s.d.o.f. for even the WTH due to lack of eavesdropper CSIT when K ≥ N.
This dissertation studies physical layer security in wireless networks using an information theoretic framework. The central theme of this work is exploring the effect of delayed or no channel state information (CSI) on physical layer security in various wireless channel models. We begin with the fast Rayleigh fading wiretap channel, over which a legitimate transmitter wishes to have secure communication with a legitimate receiver in the presence of an eavesdropper. Subject to an average power constraint on the input, and with no CSI at any user, we show that the input distribution that achieves the secrecy capacity for this wiretap channel is discrete with a finite number of mass points. This enables us to evaluate the exact secrecy capacity of this channel numerically. Next, we consider multi-user models, specifically, the wiretap channel with M helpers, the K-user multiple access wiretap channel, and the K-user interference channel with an external eavesdropper, when no eavesdropper's CSI is available at the transmitters. In each case, we establish the optimal sum secure degrees of freedom (s.d.o.f.) by providing achievable schemes and matching converses. We show that the unavailability of the eavesdropper's CSI at the transmitter (CSIT) does not reduce the s.d.o.f. of the wiretap channel with helpers. However, there is loss in s.d.o.f. for both the multiple access wiretap channel and the interference channel with an external eavesdropper. In particular, we show that in the absence of eavesdropper's CSIT, the K-user multiple access wiretap channel reduces to a wiretap channel with (K-1) helpers from a sum s.d.o.f. perspective, and the optimal sum s.d.o.f. reduces from K(K-1)/(K(K-1)+1) to (K-1)/K. For the interference channel with an external eavesdropper, the optimal sum s.d.o.f. decreases from K(K-1)/(2K-1) to (K-1)/2 in the absence of the eavesdropper's CSIT. Our results show that the lack of eavesdropper's CSIT does not have a significant impact on the optimal s.d.o.f. for any of the three channel models, especially when the number of users is large. We, then, study multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) multi-user channels. We begin with the case when full CSIT is available. We consider a two-user MIMO multiple access wiretap channel with N antennas at each transmitter, N antennas at the legitimate receiver, and K antennas at the eavesdropper. We determine the optimal sum s.d.o.f. for this model for all values of N and K. We subdivide our problem into several regimes based on the values of N and K, and provide achievable schemes based on real and vector space alignment techniques for fixed and fading channel gains, respectively. To prove the optimality of the achievable schemes, we provide matching converses for each regime. Our results show how the number of eavesdropper antennas affects the optimal sum s.d.o.f. of the multiple access wiretap channel. In line with the theme of this dissertation, we next consider the MIMO wiretap channel with one helper and the two-user MIMO multiple access channel when no eavesdropper CSIT is available. In each case, the eavesdropper has K antennas while the remaining terminals have N antennas. We determine the optimal sum s.d.o.f. for each channel model for the regime K<= N, and we show that in this regime, the multiple access wiretap channel reduces to the wiretap channel with a helper in the absence of eavesdropper CSIT. For the regime N<= K<= 2N, we obtain the optimal linear s.d.o.f., and show that the multiple access wiretap channel and the wiretap channel with a helper have the same optimal s.d.o.f. when restricted to linear encoding strategies. In the absence of any such restrictions, we provide an upper bound for the sum s.d.o.f. of the multiple access wiretap channel in the regime N<= K<= 2N. Our results show that unlike in the single-input single-output (SISO) case, there is loss of s.d.o.f. for even the wiretap channel with a helper due to lack of eavesdropper CSIT, when K>= N. Finally, we explore the effect of delayed CSIT on physical layer security. In particular, we consider the two user multiple-input single-output (MISO) broadcast channel with confidential messages, in which the nature of CSIT from each user can be of the form I_{i}, i=1,2 where I_{i} belongs to {P, D,N}, and the forms P, D and N correspond to perfect and instantaneous, completely delayed, and no CSIT, respectively. Thus, the overall CSIT can be any of nine possible states corresponding to all possible values of (I_{1},I_{2}). While the optimal sum s.d.o.f. in the homogeneous settings corresponding to I_1=I_2 are already known in the literature, we focus on the heterogeneous settings where I_1 is not equal to I_2 and establish the optimal s.d.o.f. region in each case. We further consider the case where the CSIT state varies with time. Each state (I_1,I_2) can then occur for \lambda_{I_{1}I_{2}} fraction of the total duration. We determine the s.d.o.f. region of the MISO broadcast channel with confidential messages under such an alternating CSIT setting, with a mild symmetry assumption, where \lambda_{I_{1} I_{2}}=\lambda_{I_{2}I_{1}}.
We investigate the secure degrees of freedom (SDoF) of the wiretap and the K user Gaussian broadcast channels with multiple antennas at the transmitter, the legitimate receivers and an unknown number of eavesdroppers each with a number of antennas less than or equal to a known value NE. The channel matrices between the legitimate transmitter and the receivers are available everywhere, while the legitimate pair have no information about the eavesdroppers' channels. We provide the exact sum SDoF for the considered system. A new comprehensive upperbound is deduced and a new achievable scheme based on utilizing jamming is exploited. We prove that cooperative jamming is SDoF optimal even without the eavesdropper CSI available at the transmitters.