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KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems

Secret Key Generation from Common Randomness over Ultra-wideband Wireless Channels

Jing jing Huang, Ting Jiang

Published Oct 31, 2014• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We develop a secret key generation scheme using phase estimation in ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless fading channels.Based on the reciprocity theorem, two terminals extract the phase of the channel as a common random source to generate secret bits.Moreover, we study the secret key rate by a pair of nodes observing correlated sources and communicating to achieve secret key agreement over public communication channels.As our main results, we establish a more practical upper bound from Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) and compare it with a universally theoretical upper bound on the shared maximum key rate from mutual information of correlated random sources.Derivation and numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the bound.Simulation studies are also provided to validate feasibility and efficiency of the proposed scheme.

DOI
10.3837/tiis.2014.10.016

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We develop a secret key generation scheme using phase estimation in ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless fading channels.Based on the reciprocity theorem, two terminals extract the phase of the channel as a common random source to generate secret bits.Moreover, we study the secret key rate by a pair of nodes observing correlated sources and communicating to achieve secret key agreement over public communication channels.As our main results, we establish a more practical upper bound from Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) and compare it with a universally theoretical upper bound on the shared maximum key rate from mutual information of correlated random sources.Derivation and numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the bound.Simulation studies are also provided to validate feasibility and efficiency of the proposed scheme.
By exploiting multipath fading channels as a source of common randomness, physical layer (PHY) based key generation protocols allow two terminals with correlated observations to generate secret keys with information-theoretical security. The state of the art, however, still suffers from major limitations,e.g., low key generation rate, lower entropy of key bits and a high reliance on node mobility. In this paper, a novel cooperative key generation protocol is developed to facilitate high-rate key generation in narrowband fading channels, where two keying nodes extract the phase randomness of the fading channel with the aid of relay node(s). For the first time, we explicitly consider the effect of estimation methods on the extraction of secret key bits from the underlying fading channels and focus on a popular statistical method - maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). The performance of the cooperative key generation scheme is extensively evaluated theoretically. We successfully establish both a theoretical upper bound on the maximum secret key rate from mutual information of correlated random sources and a more practical upper bound from Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) in estimation theory. Numerical examples and simulation studies are also presented to demonstrate the performance of the cooperative key generation system. The results show that the key rate can be improved by a couple of orders of magnitude compared to the existing approaches.
To investigate schemes of secret key generation from Ultra-wideband (UWB) channel, we study a statistical characterization of UWB outdoor channel for a campus playground scenario based on extensive measurements.Moreover, an efficient secret key generation mechanism exploiting multipath relative delay is developed, and verification of this algorithm is conducted in UWB Line-of-sight (LOS) outdoor channels.For the first time, we compare key-mismatch probability of UWB indoor and outdoor environments.Simulation results demonstrate that the number of multipath proportionally affects key generation rate and key-mismatch probability.In comparison to the conventional method using received signal strength (RSS) as a common random source, our mechanism achieves better performance in terms of common secret bit generation.Simultaneously, security analysis indicates that the proposed scheme can still guarantee security even in the sparse outdoor physical environment free of many reflectors.
To guarantee a secure wireless communication between any two transceivers, the shared secret key is a requirement. Communication parties need to encrypt the message with the key to impede an adversary's eavesdropping. By exploiting Ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless fading channels as a source of common randomness, two transceivers with correlated observations can generate secret keys with information-theoretical security. The state of the art of existing works, however, has neglected to consider efficient channel probing. In this paper, we define a channel probing factor to adaptively change probing interval for obtaining more correlated measurements at the endpoints of wireless communicating link. We use multipath relative delay of UWB channel to generate secret keys. Simulation results show that this dynamic secret key generation mechanism extracting multipath relative delay can achieve good performance in terms of secret key generation rate, key randomness and key-mismatch probability, especially key-mismatch probability compared with received signal strength (RSS)-based method and our prior approach. Furthermore, security analysis is also provided to validate feasibility of the scheme.
Secure communications in UWB based on cryptographic keys generated from channel measurements without a trusted third party have been developed. The fine time resolution of UWB allows high levels of mutual information to be obtained by a given A and B through independent characterizations of their shared communication channel. This mutual information determines the maximum secret key rate available to A and B. Since UWB channel gains change drastically with small antenna movements, it is inherently difficult for eavesdroppers to obtain channel measurements and reduce the secret key rate. In essence, UWB can provide spatial-temporal specific secret keys. Upper bounds on the secret key rate for standard UWB channels are calculated. It is demonstrated that high secure key generation rates are possible. It is shown that these key rates can be generated over a wide range of signal to noise ratios and channel synchronization errors.
To establish a secure communications link between any two transceivers, the communicating parties require some shared secret, or key, with which to encrypt the message so that it cannot be understood by an enemy observer. Using the theory of reciprocity for antennas and electromagnetic propagation, a key distribution method is proposed that uses the ultrawideband (UWB) channel pulse response between two transceivers as a source of common randomness that is not available to enemy observers in other locations. The maximum size of a key that can be shared in this way is characterized by the mutual information between the observations of two radios, and an approximation and upper bound on mutual information is found for a general multipath channel and examples given for UWB channel models. The exchange of some information between the parties is necessary to achieve these bounds, and various information-sharing strategies are considered and their performance is simulated. A qualitative assessment of the vulnerability of such a secret sharing system to attack from a radio in a nearby location is also given.
In wireless decentralized networks, security and privacy become more challenging due to stringent architecture and sometimes low-complexity constraints. Confidentiality of the transmissions is usually achieved by symmetric cryptography, which implies the distribution of identical secret keys to the legitimate nodes. Classical solutions for symmetric key distribution can be too complex from a computational or infrastructural point of view. An alternative would be physical layer key generation, which exploits the radio channel as a source of common information. This paper looks into the generation of secret keys from Impulse Radio - Ultra Wideband (IR-UWB) channels using low-power integrated devices. We investigate the possibility to generate identical secret bit sequences in practical environments (e.g., possibly occupied indoor rooms) and operating conditions (e.g., mobility) under specific hardware limitations inherent to device integration (e.g., time resolution and signal dynamics). The main challenge is to obtain reciprocal and random bits at an acceptable rate. Taking into account these three criteria (i.e., reciprocity, randomness, and key length), we describe and evaluate a new quantization scheme adapted to the channel impulse responses acquired by real devices.