Abstract
Due to the enormous spreading of applied wireless networks, security is actually one of the most important issues for telecommunications. One of the main issue in the field of securing wireless information exchanging is the initial common knowledge between source and destination. A shared secret is normally mandatory in order to decide the encryption (algorithm or code or key) of the information stream. It is usual to exchange this common a priori knowledge by using a “secure” channel. Nowadays a secure wireless channel is not possible. In fact normally the common a priori knowledge is already established (but this is not secure) or by using a non-radio channel (that implies a waste of time and resource). This contribution deals with the proposal of a new modulation technique ensuring secure communication in a full wireless environment. The information is modulated, at physical layer, by the thermal noise experienced by the link between two terminals. A loop scheme is designed for unique recovering of mutual information. The probability of error/detection is analytically derived for the legal users and for the third unwanted listener (passive or active attacker). Both the case of passive and active attacks have also been implemented and simulated by using Matlab-Simulink software. The analytical results have been compared to the simulated ones. All the results show that the performance of the proposed scheme yields the advantage of intrinsic security, i.e., the mutual information cannot be physically demodulated (passive attack) or denied (active attack) by a third terminal.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Shannon C. (1949) Communication theory of secrecy systems. Bell System Technical Journa, 29: 656–715
IEEE 802.16-2004. (2004). IEEE standard for local and metropolitan area networks part 16: Air interface for fixed broadband wireless access systems, October 1.
ANSI/IEEE Std 802.11. (1999). Wireless LAN medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications.
IEEE Std 802.11i. (July 2004). Part 11: Wireless LAN medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications, amendment 6: Medium access control (MAC) security enhancements.
IEEE Std 802.15.1-2005. (2005). IEEE standard local and metropolitan area networks—Part 15.1: Wireless medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications for wireless personal area networks (WPANs).
Kent, S., & Seo, K. (2005). Security architecture for the Internet protocol, Internet Engineering Task Force, RFC 4301.
Bennett, C. H., & Brassard, G. (1984). IEEE International Conference on Computers, Systems and Signal Processing (pp. 175–179). Bangalore, India.
Hero A.O. III. (2003) Secure space-time communication. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 49(12): 3235–3249
Maurer U. (1993) Secret key agreement by public discussion from common information. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 39(3): 733–742
Wyner A.D. (1975) The wire-tap channel. Bell System Technical Journal 54(8): 1355–1387
Csiszar I., Korner J. (1978) Broadcast channels with confidential messages. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 24(3): 339–348
Yang H., Luo H., Ye F., Lu S., Zhang L. (2004) Security in mobile ad hoc networks: Challenges and solutions. Wireless Communications, IEEE 11(1): 38–47
Gruteser M., Xuan L. (2004) Protecting privacy, in continuous location tracking applications. Security and Privacy Magazine, IEEE 2(2): 28–34
Yongsun H., Papadopoulos H.C. (2004) Physical-layer secrecy in AWGN via a class of chaotic DS/SS systems: Analysis and design. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing 52(9): 2637–2649
Pollock D.S.G. (1999) A handbook of time-series analysis, signal processing and dynamics. Academic Press, London ISBN 0-12-560990-6
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mucchi, L., Ronga, L.S. & Cipriani, L. A New Modulation for Intrinsically Secure Radio Channel in Wireless Systems. Wireless Pers Commun 51, 67–80 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-008-9609-8
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-008-9609-8