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Optics Continuum

Free-space optical stealth communication based on wide-band spontaneous emission

Qi Yang, Jie Li, Chengli Wei, Ben Wu

Published Nov 2, 2022• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We proposed and experimentally demonstrated a free-space optical stealth communication system that hides the stealth signal in wide-band spontaneous emission noise. Spontaneous emission light sources have been widely used for illuminations and has been recently deployed for short distance and indoor free-space optical communications, such as LiFi. Since free-space optical communication is a broadcasting network, the users’ privacy is exposed to eavesdropping attacks. In this paper, stealth communication is achieved by taking advantage of the existing properties of spontaneous emission light sources, random phase fluctuations, and protects users’ privacy in free-space communication networks. The keys to hide and recover the stealth signal are the optical delays at the transmitter and receiver. Only by matching the delay length with the pre-shared keys can the authorized receiver recover the stealth signal. Without the right key, the eavesdropper receives a constant power that is the same as illumination light sources and cannot detect the existence of the stealth signal.

DOI
10.1364/optcon.441727

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We proposed and experimentally demonstrated a free-space optical stealth communication system that hides the stealth signal in wide-band spontaneous emission noise. Spontaneous emission light sources have been widely used for illuminations and has been recently deployed for short distance and indoor free-space optical communications, such as LiFi. Since free-space optical communication is a broadcasting network, the users’ privacy is exposed to eavesdropping attacks. In this paper, stealth communication is achieved by taking advantage of the existing properties of spontaneous emission light sources, random phase fluctuations, and protects users’ privacy in free-space communication networks. The keys to hide and recover the stealth signal are the optical delays at the transmitter and receiver. Only by matching the delay length with the pre-shared keys can the authorized receiver recover the stealth signal. Without the right key, the eavesdropper receives a constant power that is the same as illumination light sources and cannot detect the existence of the stealth signal.
The principle and performance of optical stealth communication technique is summarized and its applications to smart sensor networks are proposed. Optical stealth communication, which is also known as optical steganography, hides information in wide band analog noise. The wide band and fast changing noise protects the stealth information from being detected and recorded by an eavesdropper. If the matching condition cannot be achieved when receiving the stealth information, the information is permanently lost and cannot be recovered by post-processing techniques. The optical stealth communication technique is proposed to protect the sensing information in smart sensor networks. Private information in both the fronthaul connections and the communications between the sensor nodes and the wireless stations can be hidden in the optical stealth communication channels.
Amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) light is the most natural optical carrier to hide a message in the existing optical networks at photonic layer. To enhance the anti-intercept ability of the ASE-carried stealth channel, a novel optical stealth communication scheme based on quantum noise stream cipher is proposed. The ASE light is intensity modulated by the cipher-text according to Y-00 protocol, and then transmitted under public optical noise after power attenuation. The expression of quantum noise stream ciphered ASE signal is derived, and numerical simulation is carried out. A proof-of-concept experiment is set up to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed scheme. The experiment results show that the quantum noise stream ciphered stealth signals can be transmitted over a 25 km single-mode fiber span error-free.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate an optical steganography method in which a data signal is transmitted using amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise as a carrier. The ASE serving as a carrier for the private signal has an identical frequency spectrum to the existing noise generated by the Erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) in the transmission system. The system also carries a conventional data channel that is not private. The so-called "stealth" or private channel is well-hidden within the noise of the system. Phase modulation is used for both the stealth channel and the public channel. Using homodyne detection, the short coherence length of the ASE ensures that the stealth signal can only be recovered if the receiver closely matches the delay-length difference, which is deliberately changed in a dynamic fashion that is only known to the transmitter and its intended receiver.
A temporal phase mask encryption method is proposed and experimentally demonstrated to improve the security of the stealth channel in an optical steganography system. The stealth channel is protected in two levels. In the first level, the data is carried by amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise, which cannot be detected in either the time domain or spectral domain. In the second level, even if the eavesdropper suspects the existence of the stealth channel, each data bit is covered by a fast changing phase mask. The phase mask code is always combined with the wide band noise from ASE. Without knowing the right phase mask code to recover the stealth data, the eavesdropper can only receive the noise like signal with randomized phase.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a stable secure optical communication system with no need for secure key distribution. In this scheme, the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise is used as the optical carrier to hide the signal both in time and frequency domain. The coherence length of the ASE noise is pretty short so that it is extremely difficult for an eavesdropper to intercept the signal. Only one Mach-Zehnder interferometer exists in the receiver, and there is no need for the receiver to match the optical delay. By this way, the optical delay and the polarization fluctuation caused by the environment can be automatically counteracted in the returning path. Therefore, no key distribution is required, and the optical delay value can be changed dynamically as a secret key in the receiver. In our experiment, 1Gb/s encrypted on-off keying signal is securely transmitted over 25km standard single mode fiber and dispersion compensation fiber.