We develop a spread-spectrum based approach using ultrafast technology for secure communications over existing fiber-optical networks. Secure channel is encrypted and submerged below the noise floor of the network, allowing cryptographic and steganographic security capabilities.
We develop a spread-spectrum-based approach to security-enhanced transmission over an existing public wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) lightwave network. Secure transmission for a dedicated user is achieved by overlaying a covert channel onto a multichannel WDM network. The covert channel is spectrally encoded using the technique of frequency hopping and then temporally spread by a dispersive element, with the resulting average power below the noise floor in the fiber. The presence of the WDM channels provides an ad hoc security expansion and increases the difficulty for an eavesdropper to intercept and decode the secure signal
In fiber-optic networks, optical steganographic communication hides the existence of stealth signals in public channels. The previous security analyses assumed threat models in which eavesdroppers rely only on the real-time key search in the optical domain for signal recovery. In this letter, we study a new threat model that uses coherent detection and offline digital signal processing (DSP) to recover the stealth signal, and we show the robustness of optical steganographic communication under this attack. We find that eavesdroppers equipped with the state-of-the-art coherent detectors and DSP technologies fail to estimate the secret key. In addition, even if the eavesdroppers are given the secret key, the stealth signal cannot be recovered from the signal using DSP. The histogram of the received signal after DSP displays a noise-like form which prevents eavesdroppers from detecting the existence of the stealth signal. We attribute the system robustness to the unique features of using amplified spontaneous emission noise as the signal carrier, including wide bandwidth, large phase variance, and fast phase fluctuation.
The development of communication technology is currently progressing at an extremely rapid pace. One of the most widely applied technologies for data transmission is fiber optic communication, which uses light as the transmission medium. This technology enables data to be transmitted at very high speeds. However, in the process of data transmission, a security mechanism is required to protect information from unauthorized access. Attacks on fiber optic networks can lead to significant alterations in the data received compared to the data sent by the transmitter. This poses a serious risk, particularly when the transmitted data is confidential. Two methods that can be employed to secure fiber optic networks are Optical Steganography and Optical Encryption. The working principle of Optical Steganography involves hiding signals in public channels, while Optical Encryption functions by encrypting the transmitted signals. Both methods can be implemented using OptiSystem software. According to the results of this study, Optical Encryption demonstrates a higher level of reliability compared to Optical Steganography. Optical Encryption achieved a Q-Factor value of 14.65 and a BER of 6.55×10−49. In terms of Q-Factor, Optical Encryption is shown to be 16.3% more effective than Optical Steganography and 90.4% more efficient compared to designs without a security system.