A general analysis and design framework for authentication at the physical layer where the authentication information is transmitted concurrently with the data by superimposing a carefully designed secret modulation on the waveforms is introduced.
Abstract:
Authentication is the process where claims of identity are verified. Most mechanisms of authentication (e.g., digital signatures and certificates) exist above the physical layer, though some (e.g., spread-spectrum communications) exist at the physical layer often with an additional cost in bandwidth. This paper introduces a general analysis and design framework for authentication at the physical layer where the authentication information is transmitted concurrently with the data. By superimposing a carefully designed secret modulation on the waveforms, authentication is added to the signal without requiring additional bandwidth, as do spread-spectrum methods. The authentication is designed to be stealthy to the uninformed user, robust to interference, and secure for identity verification. The tradeoffs between these three goals are identified and analyzed in block fading channels. The use of the authentication for channel estimation is also considered, and an improved bit-error rate is demonstrated for time-varying channels. Finally, simulation results are given that demonstrate the potential application of this authentication technique.
TL;DR: The authentication capacity of a noninteractive authentication over binary symmetric channels is exactly 1 and it is proved that the noiseless channel is completely unreliable.
TL;DR: This paper generalizes a framework for embedding physical layer fingerprints to create an authenticated side-channel for minimal cost and introduces a new linear coding scheme which enhances the ability to trade off the performance goals of authentication, side- channel rate, secrecy, and privacy.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the possibilities to establish covert channels in WiFi systems with emphasis on exploiting physical layer characteristics and discuss design alternatives for selected covert channel approaches and study their feasibility in practice.
TL;DR: Numerical results show that the proposed message-based tag embedding PLA method is more accurate than the traditional uniform tags embedding method which has an unavoidable tag error floor close to 10%.
TL;DR: The volume contains 13 full papers selected out of 31 submissions and 3 keynote lectures from the DPM workshop and 10 papers selected among numerous submissions from the SETOP workshop, which provide a unique view of ongoing security research work in a number of emerging environments that are becoming part of the global ICT infrastructure.
TL;DR: This final installment of the paper considers the case where the signals or the messages or both are continuously variable, in contrast with the discrete nature assumed until now.
TL;DR: A valuable reference for the novice as well as for the expert who needs a wider scope of coverage within the area of cryptography, this book provides easy and rapid access of information and includes more than 200 algorithms and protocols.
TL;DR: This month's guest columnist, Steve Bible, N7HPR, is completing a master’s degree in computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and his research area closely follows his interest in amateur radio.
TL;DR: This work introduces the problem of a single source attempting to communicate information simultaneously to several receivers and determines the families of simultaneously achievable transmission rates for many extreme classes of channels to lead to a new approach to the compound channels problem.
Authentication is the process where claims of identity are verified. This paper introduces a general analysis and design framework for authentication at the physical layer where the authentication information is transmitted concurrently with the data. Finally, simulation results are given that demonstrate the potential application of this authentication technique.
Q2. What is the definition of a robust scheme?
A robust scheme is resistant to channel and noise effects and can continue the authentication process in the midst of interference.
Q3. What is the statistic when the tagged signal is received?
When the authors assume perfect channel estimation, message recovery , and tag estimation , the statistic when the tagged signal is received is(20)where conditioned on , is a zero-mean Gaussian variable with variance .
Q4. How can a long enough authentication codeword be used to improve the performance of the data?
with a long enough authentication codeword, a useful authentication system can be achieved with very slight data degradation.
Q5. What is the key used to authenticate?
In order to authenticate, Alice sends a proof of authentication, called a tag,1 together with each message for Bob’s verification.
Q6. What is the way to generate a tag?
Even if the message is recovered with errors, in some cases, the tag can be correctly generated if the tag generating function has some robustness against the message error.
Q7. What is the probability that Eve can have her block accepted?
When the authentication considers multiple blocks and requires a certain number of tags to be verified, Eve may be able to have her block accepted even if it does not contain a valid tag.
Q8. What is the tradeoff between robustness and security?
The tradeoff between robustness and security is fundamental—by allowing more errors in the authentication process, Eve has a better opportunity to sneak in her own messages.
Q9. How does Eve determine which tag symbol?
Eve estimates each tag symbol with some nonzero error, her search space for the key expands depending on the tag symbol equivocation.
Q10. Why is Eve unable to interfere with Alice’s signals?
The reason is that any error in estimating the propagation delay, multipath, and possibly mobility between Alice, Bob, and herself will result in noncoherent interruption.