Research Article
On-line Entropy Estimation for Secure Information Reconciliation
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.22-7-2015.2260196, author={Christian Zenger and Jan Zimmer and Jan-Felix Posielek and Christof Paar}, title={On-line Entropy Estimation for Secure Information Reconciliation}, proceedings={Workshop on Wireless Communication Security at the Physical Layer}, publisher={ACM}, proceedings_a={WICOMSEC-PHY}, year={2015}, month={8}, keywords={channel-based key extraction physical layer security on-line entropy estimation information reconciliation}, doi={10.4108/eai.22-7-2015.2260196} }- Christian Zenger
Jan Zimmer
Jan-Felix Posielek
Christof Paar
Year: 2015
On-line Entropy Estimation for Secure Information Reconciliation
WICOMSEC-PHY
ACM
DOI: 10.4108/eai.22-7-2015.2260196
Abstract
The random number generator (RNG) is a critical, if not in fact the most important, component in every cryptographic device. Introducing the symmetric radio channel, represented by estimations of location-specific, reciprocal, and time- variant channel characteristics, as a common RNG is not a trivial task.
In recent years, several practice-oriented protocols have been proposed, challenging the utilization of wireless communication channels to enable the computation of a shared key. However, the security claims of those protocols typically rely on channel abstractions that are not fully experimentally substantiated, and (at best) rely on statistical off-line tests.
In the present paper, we investigate on-line statistical testing for channel-based key extraction schemes, which is independent from channel abstractions due to the capability to verify the entropy of the resulting key material. We demonstrate an important security breach if on-line estimation is not applied, e.g., if the device is in an environment with an insufficient amount of entropy. Further, we present real-world evaluation results of 10 recent protocols for the generation of keys with a verified security level of 128-bit.