Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW)

Positivity of Secret Key Capacity for Hypergraphical Sources with a Linear Wiretapper

Praneeth Kumar Vippathalla, Chung Chan, Navin Kashyap, Qiaoqiao Zhou

Published Nov 1, 2022• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The characterization of the secret key capacity with wiretapper side information is a challenging open problem. In this paper, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the positivity of wiretap secret key capacity for the multiterminal source model. This result extends the existing works for two-terminal sources. However, in the case of hypergraphical source models with a linear wiretapper, we derive a simpler equivalent condition for the positivity. We also show that blocklength need not be larger than the logarithm of the number of edges in order to generate a positive rate key. The proofs of these results involve a subclass called minimally connected hypergraphical sources with a linear wiretapper, for which we obtain a single-letter characterization of wiretap secret key capacity.

DOI
10.1109/itw54588.2022.9965830

Related papers

Secret key agreement for hypergraphical sources with limited total discussion

Chung Chan

This work considers the problem of multiterminal secret key agreement by limited total public discussion under the hypergraphical source model. The secrecy capacity as a function of the total discussion rate is completely characterized by a polynomial-time computable linear program. Compared to the existing solution for a particular hypergraphical source model called the pairwise independent network (PIN) model, the current result is a non-trivial extension as it applies to a strictly larger class of sources and a more general scenario involving helpers and wiretapper's side information. In particular, while the existing solution by tree-packing can be strictly suboptimal for the PIN model with helpers and the hypergraphical source model in general, we can show that decremental secret key agreement and linear network coding is optimal, resolving a previous conjecture in the affirmative. The converse is established by a single-letter upper bound on the secrecy capacity for discrete memoryless multiple sources and individual discussion rate constraints. The minimax optimization involved in the bound can be relaxed to give the best existing upper bounds on secrecy capacities such as the lamination bounds for hypergraphical sources, helper-set bound for general sources, the bound at asymptotically zero discussion rate via the multivariate Gác--Körner common information, and the lower bound on communication complexity via a multivariate extension of the Wyner common information. These reductions unify existing bounding techniques and reveal surprising connections between seemingly different information-theoretic notions. Further challenges are posed in this work along with a simple example of finite linear source where the current converse techniques fail even though the proposed achieving scheme remains optimal.

arXiv:1910.01894•Oct 4, 2019•2 citations

Multiterminal Secret Key Agreement with Nearly No Discussion

Chung Chan, Manuj Mukherjee, Praneeth Kumar Vippathalla +1 more

We consider the secret key agreement problem under the multiterminal source model proposed by Csiszár and Narayan. A single-letter characterization of the secrecy capacity is desired but remains unknown except in the extreme case with unlimited public discussion and without wiretapper's side information. Taking the problem to the opposite extreme by requiring the public discussion rate to be zero asymptotically, we obtain the desired characterization under surprisingly general setting with wiretapper's side information, silent users, trusted and untrusted helpers. An immediate consequence of the result is that the capacity with nearly no discussion is the same as the capacity with no discussion, resolving a previous conjecture in the affirmative. The idea of the proof is to characterize the capacity in the special case with neither wiretapper's side information nor untrusted helpers using a multivariate extension of Gács-Körner common information, and then extend the result to the general setting by a change of scenario that turns untrusted helpers into trusted helpers. We further show how to evaluate the capacity explicitly for finite linear sources and discuss how the current result can be extended to improve and unify existing bounds on the capacity for strictly positive discussion rates.

arXiv:1904.11383•Apr 25, 2019•2 citations

Secret key agreement under discussion rate constraints

Chung Chan, Manuj Mukherjee, Navin Kashyap +1 more

For the multiterminal secret key agreement problem, new single-letter lower bounds are obtained on the minimum public discussion rate required to achieve any given secret key rate below the secrecy capacity. The results apply to the general source model without helpers or wiretapper's side information, but can be strengthened for hypergraphical sources. In particular, for the pairwise independent network, our results yield a complete characterization of the maximum secret key rate achievable under a constraint on the total discussion rate.

arXiv:1701.05008•IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)•Jun 1, 2017•17 citations

Secret Key Generation for Minimally Connected Hypergraphical Sources

Qiaoqiao Zhou, Chung Chan

This paper investigates the secret key generation in the multiterminal source model, where users observing correlated sources discuss interactively under limited rates to agree on a secret key. We focus on a class of sources representable by minimally connected hypergraphs. For such sources, we give a single-letter explicit characterization of the region of achievable secret key rate and public discussion rate tuple. This is the first result that completely characterizes the achievable rate region for a multiterminal source model, which is beyond the PIN model on a tree. We also obtain an explicit formula for the maximum achievable secret key rate, called the constrained secrecy capacity, as a function of the total discussion rate.

arXiv:1805.03110•IEEE Transactions on Information Theory•Feb 12, 2020•9 citations

Secret Key Agreement and Secure Omniscience of Tree-PIN Source with Linear Wiretapper

Praneeth Kumar Vippathalla, Chung Chan, Navin Kashyap +1 more

In this paper, we obtain a single-letter characterization of the wiretap secret key capacity for a large class of multiterminal source models (namely, tree-PIN models) with a linear wiretapper that can observe arbitrary linear combinations of the source. For this class of sources, we also show a duality between the problems of wiretap secret key agreement and secure omniscience, which suggests that such duality potentially holds for more general sources.

IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)•Jul 12, 2021•5 citations

Wiretap Secret Key Agreement Via Secure Omniscience

Praneeth Kumar Vippathalla, Chung Chan, Navin Kashyap +1 more

In this paper, we explore the connection between secret key agreement and secure omniscience within the setting of the multiterminal source model with a wiretapper who has side information. While the secret key agreement problem considers the generation of a maximum-rate secret key through public discussion, the secure omniscience problem is concerned with communication protocols for omniscience that minimize the rate of information leakage to the wiretapper. The starting point of our work is a lower bound on the minimum leakage rate for omniscience, $R_{\mathop{\mathrm{L}}}$, in terms of the wiretap secret key capacity, $C_{\mathop{\mathrm{W}}}$. Our interest is in identifying broad classes of sources for which this lower bound is met with equality, in which case we say that there is a duality between secure omniscience and secret key agreement. We show that this duality holds in the case of certain finite linear source (FLS) models, such as two-terminal FLS models and pairwise independent network models on trees with a linear wiretapper. Duality also holds for any FLS model in which $C_{\mathop{\mathrm{W}}}$ is achieved by a perfect linear secret key agreement scheme. We conjecture that the duality in fact holds unconditionally for any FLS model. On the negative side, we give an example of a (non-FLS) source model for which duality does not hold if we limit ourselves to communication-for-omniscience protocols with at most two (interactive) communications. We also address the secure function computation problem and explore the connection between the minimum leakage rate for computing a function and the wiretap secret key capacity.

arXiv:2112.00394•Dec 1, 2021•1 citation
The characterization of the secret key capacity with wiretapper side information is a challenging open problem. In this paper, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the positivity of wiretap secret key capacity for the multiterminal source model. This result extends the existing works for two-terminal sources. However, in the case of hypergraphical source models with a linear wiretapper, we derive a simpler equivalent condition for the positivity. We also show that blocklength need not be larger than the logarithm of the number of edges in order to generate a positive rate key. The proofs of these results involve a subclass called minimally connected hypergraphical sources with a linear wiretapper, for which we obtain a single-letter characterization of wiretap secret key capacity.
This work considers the problem of multiterminal secret key agreement by limited total public discussion under the hypergraphical source model. The secrecy capacity as a function of the total discussion rate is completely characterized by a polynomial-time computable linear program. Compared to the existing solution for a particular hypergraphical source model called the pairwise independent network (PIN) model, the current result is a non-trivial extension as it applies to a strictly larger class of sources and a more general scenario involving helpers and wiretapper's side information. In particular, while the existing solution by tree-packing can be strictly suboptimal for the PIN model with helpers and the hypergraphical source model in general, we can show that decremental secret key agreement and linear network coding is optimal, resolving a previous conjecture in the affirmative. The converse is established by a single-letter upper bound on the secrecy capacity for discrete memoryless multiple sources and individual discussion rate constraints. The minimax optimization involved in the bound can be relaxed to give the best existing upper bounds on secrecy capacities such as the lamination bounds for hypergraphical sources, helper-set bound for general sources, the bound at asymptotically zero discussion rate via the multivariate Gác--Körner common information, and the lower bound on communication complexity via a multivariate extension of the Wyner common information. These reductions unify existing bounding techniques and reveal surprising connections between seemingly different information-theoretic notions. Further challenges are posed in this work along with a simple example of finite linear source where the current converse techniques fail even though the proposed achieving scheme remains optimal.
We consider the secret key agreement problem under the multiterminal source model proposed by Csiszár and Narayan. A single-letter characterization of the secrecy capacity is desired but remains unknown except in the extreme case with unlimited public discussion and without wiretapper's side information. Taking the problem to the opposite extreme by requiring the public discussion rate to be zero asymptotically, we obtain the desired characterization under surprisingly general setting with wiretapper's side information, silent users, trusted and untrusted helpers. An immediate consequence of the result is that the capacity with nearly no discussion is the same as the capacity with no discussion, resolving a previous conjecture in the affirmative. The idea of the proof is to characterize the capacity in the special case with neither wiretapper's side information nor untrusted helpers using a multivariate extension of Gács-Körner common information, and then extend the result to the general setting by a change of scenario that turns untrusted helpers into trusted helpers. We further show how to evaluate the capacity explicitly for finite linear sources and discuss how the current result can be extended to improve and unify existing bounds on the capacity for strictly positive discussion rates.
For the multiterminal secret key agreement problem, new single-letter lower bounds are obtained on the minimum public discussion rate required to achieve any given secret key rate below the secrecy capacity. The results apply to the general source model without helpers or wiretapper's side information, but can be strengthened for hypergraphical sources. In particular, for the pairwise independent network, our results yield a complete characterization of the maximum secret key rate achievable under a constraint on the total discussion rate.
This paper investigates the secret key generation in the multiterminal source model, where users observing correlated sources discuss interactively under limited rates to agree on a secret key. We focus on a class of sources representable by minimally connected hypergraphs. For such sources, we give a single-letter explicit characterization of the region of achievable secret key rate and public discussion rate tuple. This is the first result that completely characterizes the achievable rate region for a multiterminal source model, which is beyond the PIN model on a tree. We also obtain an explicit formula for the maximum achievable secret key rate, called the constrained secrecy capacity, as a function of the total discussion rate.
In this paper, we explore the connection between secret key agreement and secure omniscience within the setting of the multiterminal source model with a wiretapper who has side information. While the secret key agreement problem considers the generation of a maximum-rate secret key through public discussion, the secure omniscience problem is concerned with communication protocols for omniscience that minimize the rate of information leakage to the wiretapper. The starting point of our work is a lower bound on the minimum leakage rate for omniscience, RLR_{\mathop{\mathrm{L}}}RL​, in terms of the wiretap secret key capacity, CWC_{\mathop{\mathrm{W}}}CW​. Our interest is in identifying broad classes of sources for which this lower bound is met with equality, in which case we say that there is a duality between secure omniscience and secret key agreement. We show that this duality holds in the case of certain finite linear source (FLS) models, such as two-terminal FLS models and pairwise independent network models on trees with a linear wiretapper. Duality also holds for any FLS model in which CWC_{\mathop{\mathrm{W}}}CW​ is achieved by a perfect linear secret key agreement scheme. We conjecture that the duality in fact holds unconditionally for any FLS model. On the negative side, we give an example of a (non-FLS) source model for which duality does not hold if we limit ourselves to communication-for-omniscience protocols with at most two (interactive) communications. We also address the secure function computation problem and explore the connection between the minimum leakage rate for computing a function and the wiretap secret key capacity.