We present a physical layer approach aimed at providing information-theoretic security in wireless communication systems. Our secret key agreement scheme, which uses state-of-the-art error correcting codes and borrows ideas from quantum key distribution such as Gaussian reconciliation and privacy amplification, is capable of exploiting the physical properties of wireless fading channels in order to generate secret encryption keys. Focusing on the case of imperfect channel knowledge, we provide a performance analysis of the proposed security sub-system - both In theory and in practice
We present a physical layer approach aimed at providing information-theoretic security in wireless communication systems. Our secret key agreement scheme, which uses state-of-the-art error correcting codes and borrows ideas from quantum key distribution such as Gaussian reconciliation and privacy amplification, is capable of exploiting the physical properties of wireless fading channels in order to generate secret encryption keys. Focusing on the case of imperfect channel knowledge, we provide a performance analysis of the proposed security sub-system - both In theory and in practice
This paper considers the transmission of confidential data over wireless channels. Based on an information-theoretic formulation of the problem, in which two legitimates partners communicate over a quasi-static fading channel and an eavesdropper observes their transmissions through a second independent quasi-static fading channel, the important role of fading is characterized in terms of average secure communication rates and outage probability. Based on the insights from this analysis, a practical secure communication protocol is developed, which uses a four-step procedure to ensure wireless information-theoretic security: (i) common randomness via opportunistic transmission, (ii) message reconciliation, (iii) common key generation via privacy amplification, and (iv) message protection with a secret key. A reconciliation procedure based on multilevel coding and optimized low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes is introduced, which allows to achieve communication rates close to the fundamental security limits in several relevant instances. Finally, a set of metrics for assessing average secure key generation rates is established, and it is shown that the protocol is effective in secure key renewal—even in the presence of imperfect channel state information.
As an alternative and appealing approach to providing information security in wireless communication systems, secret key generation at physical layer has demonstrated its potential in terms of efficiency and reliability over traditional cryptographic methods. Without the necessity of a management centre for key distribution or reliance on computational complexity, physical layer key generation protocols enable two wireless entities to extract identical and dynamic keys from the randomness of the wireless channels associated with them.\nIn this thesis, the reliability of secret key generation at the physical layer is examined in practical wireless channels with imperfect channel state information (CSI). Theoretical analyses are provided to relate key match rate with channel's signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), degrees of channel reciprocity, and iterations of information reconciliation.\nIn order to increase key match rate of physical layer secret key generation, improved schemes in the steps of channel estimation and sample quantization are proposed respectively. In the channel estimation step, multiple observations of the wireless channels are integrated with a linear processor to provide a synthesized and more accurate estimation of the wireless channel. In the sample quantization step, a magnitude based quantization method with two thresholds is proposed to quantize partial samples, where specific quantization areas are selected to reduce cross-over errors. Significant improvements in key match rate are proven for both schemes in theoretical analysis and numerical simulations. Key match rate can even achieve 100% in both schemes with the assistance of information reconciliation process.\nIn the end, a practical application of physical layer secret key generation is presented, where dynamic keys extracted from the wireless channels are utilized for securing secret data transmission and providing efficient access control.
In Part I of this two-part paper on confidential communication over wireless channels, we studied the fundamental security limits of quasi-static fading channels from the point of view of outage secrecy capacity with perfect and imperfect channel state information. In Part II, we develop a practical secret key agreement protocol for Gaussian and quasi-static fading wiretap channels. The protocol uses a four-step procedure to secure communications: establish common randomness via an opportunistic transmission, perform message reconciliation, establish a common key via privacy amplification, and use of the key. We introduce a new reconciliation procedure that uses multilevel coding and optimized low density parity check codes which in some cases comes close to achieving the secrecy capacity limits established in Part I. Finally, we develop new metrics for assessing average secure key generation rates and show that our protocol is effective in secure key renewal.
Due to the broadcast nature of wireless channels, wireless communication is vulnerable to eavesdropping, message modification, and node impersonation. Securing the wireless communication requires the shared secret keys between the communicating entities. Traditional security schemes rely on public key infrastructures and cryptographic algorithms to manage secret keys. Recently, many physical-layer-based methods have been proposed as alternative solutions for key generation in wireless networks. These methods exploit the inherent randomness of the wireless fading channel to generate secret keys while providing information-theoretical security without intensive cryptographic computations. This article provides an overview of the existing PHY-based key generation schemes exploiting the randomness of the wireless channels. Specifically, we first introduce the fundamental and general framework of the PHY-based key generation schemes and then categorize them into two classes: received-signal-strength-based and channel- phase-based protocols. Finally, we present a performance comparison of them in terms of key disagreement probability, key generation rate, key bit randomness, scalability, and implementation issues.
Physical layer security (PLS) is a new paradigm aiming at securing communications between legitimate parties at the physical layer. Conventionally, achieving confidentiality in communication networks relies on cryptographic techniques such as public-key cryptography, secret-key distribution and symmetric encryption. Such techniques are deemed secure based on the assumption of limited computational abilities of a wiretapper. Given the relentless progress in computational capacities and the dynamic topology and proliferation of modern wireless networks, the relevance of the previous techniques in securing communications is more and more questionable and less and less reliable. In contrast to this paradigm, PLS does not assume a specific computational power at any eavesdropper, its premise to guarantee provable security via employing channel coding techniques at the physical layer exploiting the inherent randomness in most communication systems. In this dissertation, we investigate a particular aspect of PLS, which is secret-key agreement, also known as secret-sharing. In this setup, two legitimate parties try to distill a secret-key via the observation of correlated signals through a noisy wireless channel, in the presence of an eavesdropper who must be kept ignorant of the secret-key. Additionally, a noiseless public channel is made available to the legitimate parties to exchange public messages that are also accessible to the eavesdropper. Recall that key agreement is an important aspect toward realizing secure communications in the sense that the key can be used in a one-time pad scheme to send the confidential message. In the first part, our focus is on secret-sharing over Rayleigh fading quasi-static channels. We study the fundamental relationship relating the probability of error and a given target secret-key rate in the high power regime. This is characterized through the diversity multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) concept, that we define for our model and then characterize it. We show that the impact of the secrecy constraint is to reduce the effective number of transmit antennas by the number of antennas at the eavesdropper. Toward this characterization, we provide several schemes achieving the DMT and we highlight disparities between coding for the wiretap channel and coding for secret-key agreement. In the second part of the present work, we consider a fast-fading setting in which the wireless channels change during each channel use. We consider a correlated environment where transmit, legitimate receiver and eavesdropper antennas are correlated. We characterize the optimal strategy achieving the highest secret-key rate. We also identify the impact of correlation matrices and illustrate our analysis with various numerical results. Finally, we study the system from an energy-efficiency point of view and evaluate relevant metrics as the minimum energy required for sharing a secret-key bit and the wideband slope.
Due to the channel estimation error, most of the physical layer secret key generation schemes need information reconciliation to correct error key bits, resulting in reduced efficiency. To solve the problem, this work proposes a novel secure communication scheme based on a equivalent interference channel. Different keys generated from imperfect channel state information are directly applied to signal scrambling and descrambling, which is equivalent to the process of a signal passing through an interference channel. Legitimate communication parties can reduce interference with the help of similar keys and channel coding without sending additional signals, while the eavesdropper channel is deteriorated due to the spatial decorrelation. For this kind of schemes, we first establish a discrete memoryless broadcast channel model to derive the expressions of bit error rate (BER), channel capacity, and security capacity for performance analysis. Simulation results verify the derivations that the proposed scheme achieves secure communication with a correlated eavesdropping channel and has a higher upper bound of transmission rate. Furthermore, we design a new metric to evaluate the efficiency and the result shows that the proposed scheme has superior performance on error reconciliation efficiency, despite its slight increase in BER.