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IEEE Photonics Technology Letters

Robust Key Generation From Optical OFDM Signal in Indoor VLC Networks

Yahya Mohammed Al-Moliki, Mohammed T. Alresheedi, Yahya Al‐Harthi

Published Sep 14, 2016• 28 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This letter improves the confidentiality of visible light communication links by proposing a robust key-generation mechanism for optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in an indoor environment. In this letter, we propose to generate keys from the bipolar OFDM samples at the output of optical OFDM systems. We suggest to assign a part of cyclic prefix samples located in the region of small channel effect for keys generation during session period. The proposed scheme generates keys for medium access control (MAC) sublayer and physical layer. It provides high computational security against passive eavesdroppers in the physical level, because each signal frame is encrypted by a different key. So, the encryption in MAC level can be turned off without any risk in security. This setting can enhance the system throughput. Also, the implemented method achieves zero bit disagreement rates with key generation on the fly.

DOI
10.1109/lpt.2016.2609683

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This letter improves the confidentiality of visible light communication links by proposing a robust key-generation mechanism for optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in an indoor environment. In this letter, we propose to generate keys from the bipolar OFDM samples at the output of optical OFDM systems. We suggest to assign a part of cyclic prefix samples located in the region of small channel effect for keys generation during session period. The proposed scheme generates keys for medium access control (MAC) sublayer and physical layer. It provides high computational security against passive eavesdroppers in the physical level, because each signal frame is encrypted by a different key. So, the encryption in MAC level can be turned off without any risk in security. This setting can enhance the system throughput. Also, the implemented method achieves zero bit disagreement rates with key generation on the fly.
Recently, the authors proposed a physical‐layer key generation scheme for optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) techniques in an indoor scenario. The key generation protocol exploits bipolar and real‐valued optical OFDM samples to create confidential keys. It determines a chunk of cyclic prefix samples positioned in the space of small channel impact to generate the confidential keys during the session duration. This key‐generation approach offers strong computational security to counter passive eavesdroppers and key creation on the fly, with zero bit‐mismatch rates. In this Letter, the authors evaluate the randomness of the confidential keys produced from the recently proposed key‐generation protocol to validate if the keys are truly random. The authors apply a statistical test suite of the National Institute of Standards and Technology to test randomness. The results demonstrate that the keys generated from the proposed key generation system pass all the tests. The results also demonstrate that the proposed key generation system provides uncorrelated keys with an approximately equal probability of bits (discrete uniform distribution) on an average, which yields a high security system against statistical attacks.
This paper presents a key generation system derived from the channel response of individual subcarrier in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. Practical aspects of the security were investigated by implementing our key generation scheme on a wireless open-access research platform (WARP), which enables us to obtain channel estimation of individual OFDM subcarriers, a feature not currently available in most commercial wireless interface cards. Channel response of individual OFDM subcarrier is usually a wide sense stationary random process, which allows us to find the optimal probing period and maximize the key generation rate. The implementation requires cross layer design as it involves interaction between physical and MAC layer. We have experimentally verified the feasibility and principles of key generation, and also evaluated the performance of our system in terms of randomness, key generation rate and key disagreement rate, which proves that OFDM subcarrier's channel responses are valid for key generation.
Information is regarded as a resource with highest organizational value. Its confidentiality, integrity and authenticity are important for any organization. The broadcast nature of wireless medium makes communication vulnerable to security attacks such as eavesdropping, non-repudiation, denial of service and more. Hence, prior to transmission of information, a secret key is securely exchanged between sender and receiver. Conventional key generation algorithms work at the application layer. However, they suffer from computational overheads and require a reliable third party. Moreover, when system grows complex, these methods start failing considerably. To encounter these issues, a novel key exchange mechanism is proposed which works at the physical layer. The proposed method is based on the concept of self-jamming and exploits the properties of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). The simulation results show that the proposed scheme has a low Bit Error Rate (BER) for the receiver and high BER for the eavesdropper. It has also been shown that the number of attempts that eavesdropper has to make to guess the correct key are large, thereby decreasing its probability to decode the correct key.
Although visible light communication (VLC) channels are more secure than radio frequency channels, the broadcast nature of VLC links renders them open to eavesdropping. As a result, VLC networks must provide security in order to safeguard the user’s data from eavesdroppers. In the literature, keyless security techniques have been developed to offer security for VLC. Even though these techniques provide strong security against eavesdroppers, they are difficult to deploy. Key generation algorithms are critical for securing wireless connections. Nonetheless, in many situations, the typical key generation methods may be quite complicated and costly. They consume scarce resources, such as bandwidth. In this paper, we propose a novel key extraction procedure that uses error-correcting coding and one time pad (OTP) to improve the security of VLC networks and the validity of data. This system will not have any interference problems with other devices. We also explain error correction while sending a message across a network, and suggest a change to the Berlekamp–Massey (BM) algorithm for error identification and assessment. Because each OOK signal frame is encrypted by a different key, the proposed protocol provides high physical layer security; it allows for key extraction based on the messages sent, so an intruder can never break the encryption system, even if the latter knows the protocol with which we encrypted the message; our protocol also enables for error transmission rate correction and bit mismatch rates with on-the-fly key fetch. The results presented in this paper were performed using MATLAB.
Physical layer key generation from the wireless channel is an emerging area of interest to provide confidentiality and authentication. One of the main challenges in this domain is to increase the length of the generated secret key while maintaining its randomness and uniformity. In this letter, new dimensions for wireless channel-based key generation are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel perspective of the proposed work lies in the generation of key bits not only from the magnitudes of OFDM subchannels as it has conventionally been done but also from the number and positions/indices of those subchannels, whose channel gains are above the mean of the respective subblock. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key generation rate and key mismatch rate. It is shown in the simulation results that the involvement of the proposed dimensions can double the key generation rate compared to conventional algorithms.
Physical layer key generation is a promising privacy protection technique suitable for devices with limited computational ability. In this work, we design a key generation algorithm based on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) waveforms and implement the algorithm on a testbed. By exploiting the holistic channel state information (CSI), we improve the key generation rate (KGR) significantly. The performance of the algorithm and the secrecy of generated keys are evaluated by experimentation. Then, we design a cross-layer encryption protocol based on our key generation algorithm and the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). We provide a mathematical framework to show that the secrecy of the encryption is enhanced compared to traditional encryption schemes with one pre-shared key (e.g., WPA2-PSK), even when some generated keys are leaked to the eavesdropper. The results lead to practical and robust applications of physical layer key generation.