Biblio
Covert or low probability of detection communication is crucial to protect user privacy and provide a strong security. We analyze the joint impact of imperfect knowledge of the channel gain (channel uncertainty) and noise power (noise uncertainty) on the average probability of detection error at the eavesdropper and the covert throughput in Rayleigh fading channel. We characterize the covert throughput gain provided by the channel uncertainty as well as the covert throughput loss caused by the channel fading as a function of the noise uncertainty. Our result shows that the channel fading is essential to hiding the signal transmission, particularly when the noise uncertainty is below a threshold and/or the receive SNR is above a threshold. The impact of the channel uncertainty on the average probability of detection error and covert throughput is more significant when the noise uncertainty is larger.
In this work, Automatic-Repeat-Request (ARQ) and Maximal Ratio Combination (MRC), have been jointly exploited to enhance the confidentiality of wireless services requested by a legitimate user (Bob) against an eavesdropper (Eve). The obtained security performance is analyzed using Packet Error Rate (PER), where the exact PER gap between Bob and Eve is determined. PER is proposed as a new practical security metric in cross layers (Physical/MAC) security design since it reflects the influence of upper layers mechanisms, and it can be linked with Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for various digital services such as voice and video. Exact PER formulas for both Eve and Bob in i.i.d Rayleigh fading channel are derived. The simulation and theoretical results show that the employment of ARQ mechanism and MRC on a signal level basis before demodulation can significantly enhance data security for certain services at specific SNRs. However, to increase and ensure the security of a specific service at any SNR, adaptive modulation is proposed to be used along with the aforementioned scheme. Analytical and simulation studies demonstrate orders of magnitude difference in PER performance between eavesdroppers and intended receivers.
Traditional encryption techniques require packet overhead, produce processing time delay, and suffer from severe quality of service deterioration due to fades and interference in wireless channels. These issues reduce the effective transmission data rate (throughput) considerably in wireless communications, where data rate with limited bandwidth is the main constraint. In this paper, performance evaluation analyses are conducted for an integrated signaling-encryption mechanism that is secure and enables improved throughput and probability of bit-error in wireless channels. This mechanism eliminates the drawbacks stated herein by encrypting only a small portion of an entire transmitted frame, while the rest is not subject to traditional encryption but goes through a signaling process (designed transformation) with the plaintext of the portion selected for encryption. We also propose to incorporate error correction coding solely on the small encrypted portion of the data to drastically improve the overall bit-error rate performance while not noticeably increasing the required bit-rate. We focus on validating the signaling-encryption mechanism utilizing Hamming and convolutional error correction coding by conducting an end-to-end system-level simulation-based study. The average probability of bit-error and throughput of the encryption mechanism are evaluated over standard Gaussian and Rayleigh fading-type channels and compared to the ones of the conventional advanced encryption standard (AES).
We consider the block Rayleigh fading multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wiretap channel with no prior channel state information (CSI) available at any of the terminals. The channel gains remain constant in a coherence time of T symbols, and then change to another independent realization. The transmitter, the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper have nt, nr and ne antennas, respectively. We determine the exact secure degrees of freedom (s.d.o.f.) of this system when T ≥ 2 min(nt, nr). We show that, in this case, the s.d.o.f. is exactly (min(nt, nr) - ne)+(T - min(nt, nr))/T. The first term can be interpreted as the eavesdropper with ne antennas taking away ne antennas from both the transmitter and the legitimate receiver. The second term can be interpreted as a fraction of s.d.o.f. being lost due to the lack of CSI at the legitimate receiver. In particular, the fraction loss, min(nt, nr)/T, can be interpreted as the fraction of channel uses dedicated to training the legitimate receiver for it to learn its own CSI. We prove that this s.d.o.f. can be achieved by employing a constant norm channel input, which can be viewed as a generalization of discrete signalling to multiple dimensions.