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Optics Express

Secure fiber-optic communication system based on Internet-accessible multipath transmission of ciphertext fragments

Ya Jin, Yichao Qi, Yinfang Chen, Wei Chen, Wei Li, Ninghua Zhu

Published Jul 13, 2021• 16 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A secure fiber-optic communication system based on Internet-accessible multipath transmission of ciphertext fragment (MTCF) technology is proposed and demonstrated in this paper. By performing algorithm encryption on the transmitted data before randomly assigning them to multiple channels corresponding to different wavelengths or Internet protocols (IPs), the secure and long-distance transmission can be realized. A field trial experiment over 125 km between Beijing and Xiongan has been successfully undertaken, and the results show that the maximum throughput can reach 60 Mb/s, which demonstrates the feasibility of the scheme. We also established a theoretical model to analyze the security performance of the proposed system. As far as we know, this is the first time that MTCF, an optical physical layer and application layer integrated security technology, has been enjoyed the capacity to access the public network, which provides an exciting opportunity to advance our knowledge of long-distance secure communication.

DOI
10.1364/oe.430035

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A secure fiber-optic communication system based on Internet-accessible multipath transmission of ciphertext fragment (MTCF) technology is proposed and demonstrated in this paper. By performing algorithm encryption on the transmitted data before randomly assigning them to multiple channels corresponding to different wavelengths or Internet protocols (IPs), the secure and long-distance transmission can be realized. A field trial experiment over 125 km between Beijing and Xiongan has been successfully undertaken, and the results show that the maximum throughput can reach 60 Mb/s, which demonstrates the feasibility of the scheme. We also established a theoretical model to analyze the security performance of the proposed system. As far as we know, this is the first time that MTCF, an optical physical layer and application layer integrated security technology, has been enjoyed the capacity to access the public network, which provides an exciting opportunity to advance our knowledge of long-distance secure communication.
We propose and demonstrate a data fragment multipath transmission scheme to achieve a secure optical communication based on polarization regulation. A dual-polarization Mach–Zehnder modulator (DPMZM) is driven by digital signals which are scattered by field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and transmitted in multiple paths. By utilizing two orthogonal polarization states, we have achieved a signal transmission under different optical parameters, and the transmission rate of the two paths can reach over 10 Gbps through a 20 km fiber with 2.5 Gbps hopping rate. In addition, we establish a theoretical model to analyze the security of the system and simulate brute force cracking; the probability of cracking the minimum information unit is 1.53 × 10−53. This proves that it is difficult to obtain a user data even using the fastest computers. Our scheme has provided, to our knowledge, a new approach for physical layer security.
Fiber Optics Communication is also one of the major branch which is widely used in current communication world. Due to several advantages of fiber optics communication over different conventional wired communication method it is having higher priority. Though fiber optic transmits large amount of data quickly over long distance, it is vulnerable to various security attacks. The fiber optic cable can be easily tapped. Fundamental improvements can be achieved for the entire network by increasing the optical network’s performance in terms of channel capacity, data rate, and processing speed. Furthermore, the security of the optical network has an impact on the security of the entire communication system. Optical network security can be effectively protected by fiber-based methods, including all optical signal processing, optical key distribution, optical steganography, and optical chaos-based communication. Fiber-based devices do not radiate an electromagnetic signature and are immune to electromagnetic interference. To provide end to end secure fiber optic communication, a special encryption algorithm based on Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is employed. The proposed encryption algorithm is simulated and the performance is analyzed. In this paper we are mostly dealing with the basics of fiber optics working principle, priority over other conventional communication system and role of fiber optics communication in computer networking and its vulnerabilities.
Providing physical layer security at the lowest network layer in fiber-optic communication systems is a technical challenge worldwide. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a pure hardware optical encryption scheme based on temporal spreading and self-feedback phase encryption for high-speed and long-distance physical-layer secure optical communication. A record high bit-rate-distance product of 6400 Gb/s km is successfully achieved by the secure transmission of a 32 Gb/s on-off-keying modulated confidential signal over a 200 km optical fiber link. The demonstrated scheme is fully compatible with conventional optical transmission systems and can be operated in a pluggable manner, which may pave a new path to ultra-high-speed physical-layer secure optical communication in the future.
Optical communication networks are easy to be eavesdropped by attackers, and traditional encryption algorithms have become more and more difficult to ensure the security of information transmission. Different from the traditional encryption algorithm, optical covert communication processes the signal at the physical layer, and improves the security and reliability of the system by hiding the optical signal in the public channel. Based on a typical microwave photonic filter, an optical covert communication scheme is proposed. On the one hand, the microwave photonic filter makes the scheme imperceptible. On the other hand, the randomness of complementary coding makes the scheme confidential. The feasibility of the scheme is analyzed theoretically, and the experimental results show that the covert channel is successfully transmitted over 50 km single-mode fiber.
As we enter the big data and artificial intelligence (AI) era, integrating security and communication over optical fiber has become a critical challenge. This urgency is driven by the need to protect vast amounts of sensitive data, ensuring privacy security across global high-capacity optical networks. Traditional secure communication methods often struggle to maintain high-capacity transmission performance while providing robust security. Here we propose an integrated encryption and communication (IEAC) framework, designed to maximize mutual information (MI) for legal users while minimizing it for potential eavesdroppers. Enabled by end-to-end deep learning, this holistic framework trains a random number-selected geometric constellation shaping scheme to optimize encryption processes and transmission quality simultaneously. The IEAC experiment system achieves a groundbreaking single-channel transmission rate of 1 Terabit per second (Tb/s) over a 1200-km fiber link, employing a 26-channel, 3.9 THz bandwidth, full C-band wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) configuration. The MI for eavesdroppers is under 0.2 bit per symbol where the regular value is near 4.0, ensuring secure transmission. The IEAC scheme offers a scalable, promising solution to meet the escalating demand for high-throughput, secure data transmission in the face of advancing big data and AI computational technologies.