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Journal of Lightwave Technology

Secure Key Generation and Distribution Scheme Based on Signal Hiding and Concatenated Coding in Optical Fiber

Kongni Zhu, Yuang Li, Shuang Wei, Mingrui Zhang, Yongli Zhao, Jie Zhang, Yajie Li

Published Jun 12, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A key generation and distribution scheme in coherent optical system is proposed, which is compatible with the current fiber infrastructure. The random key is generated by quantifying system noise which is obtained according to the training sequence. The key signal with the low power is hidden in the 212×212 TQAM signal. The legal party can extract the key signal from 16 QAM signals, but the attacker can only extract the key signal from 212×212 TQAM signals. Compared with processing 212×212 TQAM signals, existing algorithms are more effective at processing 16 QAM signals. It provides the security of key distribution and is verified by experiment. The concatenated coding including LDPC coding and differential coding is employed to get error-free key and expand the security space. Since differential coding leads to cumulative errors, the key error rate is ∼50% when the key error rate is above the LDPC threshold. The proposed scheme achieves an error-free key with KDR of 2.5 Gbps over 80 km SSMF, which does not require the presetting, external random source, and additional device.

DOI
10.1109/jlt.2025.3579040

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A key generation and distribution scheme in coherent optical system is proposed, which is compatible with the current fiber infrastructure. The random key is generated by quantifying system noise which is obtained according to the training sequence. The key signal with the low power is hidden in the 212×212 TQAM signal. The legal party can extract the key signal from 16 QAM signals, but the attacker can only extract the key signal from 212×212 TQAM signals. Compared with processing 212×212 TQAM signals, existing algorithms are more effective at processing 16 QAM signals. It provides the security of key distribution and is verified by experiment. The concatenated coding including LDPC coding and differential coding is employed to get error-free key and expand the security space. Since differential coding leads to cumulative errors, the key error rate is ∼50% when the key error rate is above the LDPC threshold. The proposed scheme achieves an error-free key with KDR of 2.5 Gbps over 80 km SSMF, which does not require the presetting, external random source, and additional device.
With the wide application of large-capacity and high-speed optical networks, its security has become a current research focus. Due to the limitations of traditional key distribution and encryption schemes, this paper proposes an innovative key distribution and encryption control scheme based on physical layer channel feature extraction and analysis. First of all, the transceiver terminal extracts the physical characteristics of the fiber channel separately, and generates a consensus key through quantization coding. Second, use the generated key base to encrypt the transmission sequence, map the Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) signal to the high-order 1024×1024-QAM signal, and use the noise stream to perform the high-order QAM. The signal is flooded. The system utilizes channel non-replication and randomness of channel noise, the security and randomness of the key are good, and the key formation rate is high and the key generation equipment is simple. The system uses high-order QAM modulation, which increases the security of the system. The experimental results show that the coding rate of the key generated by the system reaches 400kb/s, and the coding performance of the key is better; the operating key is generated by the key base extension, which has strong anti-interception ability; the system has a low bit error rate and secure transmission Good performance.
This paper proposes a novel key distribution system based on the measurement of the bit error rate (BER) in a fiber channel. By carrying out the loopback BER measurement at both the transmitting and the receiving end, the BER is quantified and codified to generate consistency keys. Alice and Bob respectively encrypt the signal with the help of the public key base at the transmitting end. At the receiving end the data are decrypted and then the BER is measured. The security of generated keys in the system is enhanced by the use of the encryption base and the randomness of the channel. Additionally, noise sources are added to the channel so that the random noise conceals signals and Eve cannot eavesdrop the useful information in it. Due to the randomness of the channel noise, the generated keys have good randomness. This system at a high key generation rate is compatible with the existing communication device and its measurement is simple. The 10G bit/s-200 km coherent optical communication system is used to measure the BER of the security feature information of the extracted channel. The experimental results show that the key distribution system obtains a consistency rate of 98% with the key generation rate 2 Mbps, both of which have been significantly improved.
We propose a secure key generation and distribution scheme for data encryption in classical optical fiber channel. A Delay interferometer (DI) is used to track the random phase fluctuation inside fiber, while the reconfigurable lengths of polarization-maintaining (PM) fiber are set as the source of optical phase fluctuations. The output signals from DI are extracted as the secret key and shared between the two-legal transmitter and receiver. Because of the randomness of local environment and the uniqueness of fiber channel, the phase fluctuation between orthogonal polarization modes (OPMs) can be used as secure keys to enhance the level of security in physical layer. Experimentally, we realize the random key generation and distribution over 25-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF). Moreover, the proposed key generation scheme has the advantages of low cost, compatible with current optical fiber networks and long distance transmission with optical amplifiers.
In this paper, a secure key generation and distribution scheme based on the phase noise of an amplified spontaneous emission source is proposed and experimentally verified. A giant key generator that contains two distribution arms is used to generate a specific beat dependent on the path length difference of the arms. Through the method of balanced subtraction of the local signals, the effect of the intensity noise has been mainly excluded, and the two legal users obtain the consistent differential signal that depended on the phase noise. Experiment results show that the correlation coefficient of the key signals reaches to about 0.89, and the bit generation rate of the scheme achieves to 3.06 Gbit/s under a length of 20 km standard single-mode optical fiber route, as the bit error rate stays under 0.02%. Moreover, the converted digital key stream has passed the NIST statistical test suite, which means that the scheme is inherently random in the statistical sense. With the excellent performance mentioned above, the proposed scheme provides a simple and efficient solution for the method of one-time pad.
To address the urgent demand for secure optical fiber communication, a novel dual independent key generation and distribution scheme for Optical Network Physical Layer Security is proposed for the first time. End-to-end (E2E) learning with a Transformer algorithm featuring adaptive positional encoding is introduced to accurately model coherent fiber transmission systems, achieving an R-squared value exceeding 0.95 for waveform fitting and data distribution. The error vector phase (EVP) and amplitude noise (AN) of the E2E system are utilized to comprehensively characterize channel uniqueness, reducing system reconstruction risks while serving as sources for highly random key sequences for legitimate parties. Key consistency stems from channel reciprocity and precise E2E modeling, with feasibility analyzed across diverse link conditions. Leveraging the fact that eavesdroppers cannot access the system's full lifecycle data, keys are extracted from outputs of transfer learning (TL)-updated E2E models to enhance security. Security analysis under various eavesdropping scenarios demonstrates resistance to attacks. Experimental results show that, with FPGA-implemented post-processing, error-free key distribution is achieved over 120 km SSMF at EVP and AN key rates of 306.74 Mbps and 521.82 Mbps, respectively.