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Optics Express

Real-time stealth optical transmission via fast laser frequency dithering

Yuanxiang Wang, Xueyuan Ao, Linsheng Zhong, Ruiyan Zhao, Jianjun Ma, Xiaoxiao Dai, Qi Yang, Lei Deng, Deming Liu, Mengfan Cheng

Published Dec 21, 2023• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report a real-time 150 kbps stealth transmission within public optical communication of 10 Gbps dual polarization QPSK. The stealth data is modulated onto the frequency tuning signals of a fast-tuning laser source in the transmitter, which causes slight frequency dithering for the transmitted optical signal. In the receiver, the stealth receiver recovers the stealth data from the estimated frequency offset by the QPSK DSP algorithm. The experiments show the stealth transmission has few impacts on the public channel over a 300 km distance. The proposed method is fully compatible with existing optical transmission systems, and the only hardware change is to upgrade the transmitter laser to support frequency tuning through an external analog port for receiving stealth signal. The proposed stealth scheme can combine with cryptographic protocols to improve the integrated security of the system, and can be used as signaling transport for low level network control to reduce the communication overhead.

DOI
10.1364/oe.510354

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We report a real-time 150 kbps stealth transmission within public optical communication of 10 Gbps dual polarization QPSK. The stealth data is modulated onto the frequency tuning signals of a fast-tuning laser source in the transmitter, which causes slight frequency dithering for the transmitted optical signal. In the receiver, the stealth receiver recovers the stealth data from the estimated frequency offset by the QPSK DSP algorithm. The experiments show the stealth transmission has few impacts on the public channel over a 300 km distance. The proposed method is fully compatible with existing optical transmission systems, and the only hardware change is to upgrade the transmitter laser to support frequency tuning through an external analog port for receiving stealth signal. The proposed stealth scheme can combine with cryptographic protocols to improve the integrated security of the system, and can be used as signaling transport for low level network control to reduce the communication overhead.
The physical layer transmission security is a promising technology against security threats. As an effective supplement to the encryption strategy, steganography has received widespread attention. We report a real-time 2 kbps stealth transmission in the 10 Gbps dual polarization QPSK public optical communication. The stealth data is embedded in dither signals via precise and stable bias control technique for a Mach-Zehnder modulator. In the receiver, the stealth data can be recovered from the normal transmission signals by low SNR signal processing and digital down conversion. The stealth transmission has been verified to pose almost no impact on the public channel over a 117 km distance. The proposed scheme is compatible with existing optical transmission systems, so that no new hardware needs to be employed. It can be accomplished and is exceeded economically by adding simple algorithms, which utilizes only a small amount of FPGA resources. The proposed method can cooperate with encryption strategies or cryptographic protocols at different network layers to reduce the communication overhead and improve the overall security of the system.
To counter heterodyne measurements, correlation attacks, and known plaintext attacks, seed key refresh is critical to the security of a quantum noise stream cipher system. Integrated key distribution is an important means to reduce the deployment cost, as key exchange and public transmission are performed over the same channel. In this paper, we propose a novel method for integrated key distribution by optical steganography based on dither-remodulation in a bias controller of the Mach-Zehnder modulator. No extra wavelength or bandwidth is used for the stealth channel, which is transmitted together within the public channel. The concealing depth of the stealth signal reaches −36.2 dB, and its steganographic effect provides additional security, which further improves the overall security of the optical physical layer. The bidirectional stealth transmission can support light-weight temporary key exchange mechanism, combined with asymmetric encryption algorithm, to achieve high security and forward/backward security of seed keys. We experimentally demonstrate a real-time integrated key distribution via optical steganography in a QNSC system. The experimental results show that a real-time bidirectional stealth link is established at a rate of 1 kbps in a fiber transmission distance of 97 km for a public QNSC transmission at a rate of 32 Gbps, providing a seed key refresh frequency of over 1 Hz.
This paper describe a long-haul stealth communication based on different state bases unidirectional loopback (DSBUL) in optical fiber link. In order to prevent the optical signal in the optical fiber from being directly detected by the eavesdropping, our scheme combine the quantum noise stream cipher with a novel signal expension technology. We demonstrate digital signal processing (DSP) algorithm steps of transmitter and receiver in detail and experimentally implement a long-haul stealth communication based on DSBUL system, which can be compatible with existing coherent optical communication systems without changing any hardware structure. The stealth transmission distance (L) is 300 kilometers with free bit error rate. And transmission rate is over 550 kbps. In additional, we evaluate the security of this scheme with capability against various tapping attacks.
A frequency-hopping optical stealth communication scheme based on a supercontinuum spectrum laser source is proposed and demonstrated in a proof-of-principle experiment. In this system, the frequency bands of the wavelength selective switch (WSS) turn off in the public channel and the WSS select in the stealth channel are consistent. Hence, the supercontinuum spectrum signal light can be embedded in the spectral gap of different wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) signals to achieve the effect of concealment. By selecting different frequency bands to access the public channel at different times based on a WSS, providing huge flexibility and additional security. Attributing to the narrower frequency band occupied by the public signal, the colossal convenience of the frequency hopping of the stealth signal carrier can be guaranteed. In order to measure the security of the proposed scheme, the physical layer security of the system using the interception probability as an index is investigated
Optical encryption, key generation, and optical stealth transmission techniques for protecting the privacy of communication in optical networks are proposed and summarized. The signal processing methods based on fiber components provide ways to encrypt data and generate encryption keys at the speed of data transmission in optical fibers. Private and confidential communication is achieved without compromising the capacity and bandwidth of the optical network. Optical stealth transmission can hide the signal in plain sight. Because an eavesdropper can neither read the data nor detect the existence of the transmitted signal, optical stealth transmission provides a higher level of privacy. A hybrid system which includes both the public channels and stealth channels can effectively provide anonymous communication and defend against traffic analysis.