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International Conference on Communication Technology and Information Technology (ICCTIT)

Key Distribution Using Scrambling of Digital Signals in Multimode Fiber

Binbin Chen, Yuanhong Liang, Rong Peng, Anbang Wang

Published Dec 27, 2024• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose and verify a scheme that leverages the reciprocity and multipath scattering effects of multimode fibers to use them as scrambling devices. Each of the legitimate users possesses a segment of multimode fiber to scramble digital signals. When the scrambled digital signals are transmitted to a remote end through the transmission link, they need to pass through the multimode fiber at the remote end for a second scrambling to ensure security. Since the scrambling effect on the signal only exists in the multimode fiber, channel interference is compensated for, significantly enhancing transmission distance while maintaining high correlation. Additionally, the device’s security stems from its intrinsic state, as devices in different locations and environments exhibit varying states. The results show that even if an eavesdropper obtains a device with similar parameters, they cannot achieve the same sequence as the legitimate end-users. Ultimately, we achieved a key distribution rate of $0.18 \mathrm{Gbit} / \mathrm{s}$ using two segments of multimode fiber to scramble signals over a 50 km single-mode fiber.

DOI
10.1109/icctit64404.2024.10928448

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We propose and verify a scheme that leverages the reciprocity and multipath scattering effects of multimode fibers to use them as scrambling devices. Each of the legitimate users possesses a segment of multimode fiber to scramble digital signals. When the scrambled digital signals are transmitted to a remote end through the transmission link, they need to pass through the multimode fiber at the remote end for a second scrambling to ensure security. Since the scrambling effect on the signal only exists in the multimode fiber, channel interference is compensated for, significantly enhancing transmission distance while maintaining high correlation. Additionally, the device’s security stems from its intrinsic state, as devices in different locations and environments exhibit varying states. The results show that even if an eavesdropper obtains a device with similar parameters, they cannot achieve the same sequence as the legitimate end-users. Ultimately, we achieved a key distribution rate of 0.18Gbit/s0.18 \mathrm{Gbit} / \mathrm{s}0.18Gbit/s using two segments of multimode fiber to scramble signals over a 50 km single-mode fiber.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate high-speed operation of random-channel cryptography (RCC) in multimode fibers. RCC is a key generation and distribution method based on the random channel state of a multimode fiber and multi-dimension to single-dimension projection. The reciprocal intensity transmittance of the channel shared between the two legitimate users is used to generate and distribute correlated keys. In previous work, RCC's key rate-distance product was limited by the speed of light. In this work, we show that adding a fast modulator at one end of the channel decouples the key rate and distance, resulting in a significant improvement in the key rate-distance product, limited only by the fiber's modal dispersion. Error-free transmission at a key rate-distance product of 64.7 Mbps$ \times $12 km, which is seven orders of magnitude higher than the previous demonstration, was achieved. The proposed method's security arises from a fundamental asymmetry between the eavesdroppers’ and legitimate users’ measurement complexity.
Secure distribution of high-speed digital encryption/decryption keys over a classical fiber channel is strongly pursued for realizing perfect secrecy communication systems. However, it is still challenging to achieve a secret key rate in the order of tens of gigabits per second to be comparable with the bit rate of commercial fiber-optic systems. In this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel solution for high-speed secure key distribution based on temporal steganography and private chaotic phase scrambling in the classical physical layer. The encryption key is temporally concealed into the background noise in the time domain and randomly phase scrambled bit-by-bit by a private chaotic signal, which provides two layers of enhanced security to guarantee the privacy of key distribution while providing a high secret key rate. We experimentally achieved a record classical secret key rate of 10 Gb/s with a bit error rate lower than the hard-decision forward error correction (HD-FEC) over a 40 km standard single mode fiber. The proposed solution holds great promise for achieving high-speed key distribution in the classical fiber channel by combining steganographic transmission and chaotic scrambling.
The physical-layer properties of the classical optical fiber channel provide an inherent, unique, random and reciprocal source for secure key generation and distribution (SKGD). However, the key generation rate (KGR) is generally less than kbit/s in the reported SKGD schemes. In this paper, an accelerated SKGD scheme based on active polarization scrambling is proposed in the classical optical fiber channel. A combination of unique birefringence distribution of optical fiber channel and active scrambling of instant state of polarization (SOP) enables a fast and random SOP fluctuation to be securely shared between the legitimate users for accelerated SKGD. The proposed SKGD scheme is experimentally demonstrated over 24-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF), where a KGR of 200-kbit/s with an error-free operation is achieved after the post-processing procedure. Moreover, the possible fiber-tapping attacks are theoretically and experimentally analyzed for the security robustness of the proposed scheme. The results imply that a faster SKGD scheme could be achieved by incorporating an active polarization scrambling mechanism into the random properties of the fiber channel.
Disorder and scattering in photonic systems have long been considered a nuisance that should be circumvented. Recently, disorder has been harnessed for a rapidly growing number of applications, including imaging, sensing, and spectroscopy. The chaotic dynamics and extreme sensitivity to external perturbations make random media particularly well-suited for optical cryptography. However, using random media for distribution of secret keys between remote users still remains challenging since it requires the users have access to the same scattering sample. Here, we utilize random mode mixing in long multimode fibers to generate and distribute keys simultaneously. Fast fluctuations in fiber mode mixing provide the source of randomness for key generation, and optical reciprocity guarantees that the keys at the two ends of the fiber are identical. We experimentally demonstrate the scheme using classical light and off-the-shelf components, opening the door for a practically secure key establishment at the physical layer of fiber-optic networks.
Key distribution is a major challenge of secure communication. Computational approaches to key distribution are breached by quantum algorithms, while quantum key distribution (QKD) is an expensive, slow, and sophisticated solution. Secure key generation and distribution from unpredictable and inherent physical-layer properties of optical fiber channel is a classical, simple and cost-effective solution. However, the quasi-static nature of fiber channels dramatically limits the available key generation rate (KGR) to the order of ~kbit/s. Here we effectively accelerate the KGR by six orders of magnitude using a developed high-speed chaotic polarization scrambler (CPS) driven by digital chaos in fiber channels. An error-free KGR of 284.8 Mbit/s is experimentally demonstrated over a 24 km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF), where the generated key passes the random test suite. Moreover, we fully analyze the security mechanism and find that a strong asymmetry exists between legal and illegal users, ensuring a high-level of security against potential fiber-tapping attacks. This scheme provides a major step towards the practical implementation of the “one-time-pad” in secure data transmission over fiber networks.
Quantum communication aims to provide absolutely secure transmission of secret information. State-of-the-art methods encode symbols into single photons or coherent light with much less than one photon on average. For long-distance communication, typically a single-mode fiber is used and significant effort has been devoted already to increase the data carrying capacity of a single optical line. Here we propose and demonstrate a fundamentally new concept for remote key establishment. Our method allows high-dimensional alphabets using spatial degrees of freedom by transmitting information through a light-scrambling multimode fiber and exploiting the no-cloning theorem. Eavesdropper attacks can be detected without using randomly switched mutually unbiased bases. We prove the security against a common class of intercept-resend and beam-splitting attacks with single-photon Fock states and with weak coherent light. Since it is optical fiber based, our method allows to naturally extend secure communication to larger distances. We experimentally demonstrate this new type of key exchange method by encoding information into a few-photon light pulse decomposed over guided modes of an easily available multimode fiber.