No Arabic abstract
In this paper, we study the problem of distributed multi-user secret sharing, including a trusted master node, $Nin mathbb{N}$ storage nodes, and $K$ users, where each user has access to the contents of a subset of storage nodes. Each user has an independent secret message with certain rate, defined as the size of the message normalized by the size of a storage node. Having access to the secret messages, the trusted master node places encoded shares in the storage nodes, such that (i) each user can recover its own message from the content of the storage nodes that it has access to, (ii) each user cannot gain any information about the message of any other user. We characterize the capacity region of the distributed multi-user secret sharing, defined as the set of all achievable rate tuples, subject to the correctness and privacy constraints. In the achievable scheme, for each user, the master node forms a polynomial with the degree equal to the number of its accessible storage nodes minus one, where the value of this polynomial at certain points are stored as the encoded shares. The message of that user is embedded in some of the coefficients of the polynomial. The remaining coefficients are determined such that the content of each storage node serves as the encoded shares for all users that have access to that storage node.
We consider an extension of Masseys construction of secret sharing schemes using linear codes. We describe the access structure of the scheme and show its connection to the dual code. We use the $g$-fold weight enumerator and invariant theory to study the access structure.
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is a new promising technology that is able to reconfigure the wireless propagation channel via smart and passive signal reflection. In this paper, we investigate the capacity region of a two-user communication network with one access point (AP) aided by $M$ IRS elements for enhancing the user-AP channels, where the IRS incurs negligible delay, thus the user-AP channels via the IRS follow the classic discrete memoryless channel model. In particular, we consider two practical IRS deployment strategies that lead to different effective channels between the users and AP, namely, the distributed deployment where the $M$ elements form two IRSs, each deployed in the vicinity of one user, versus the centralized deployment where all the $M$ elements are deployed in the vicinity of the AP. First, we consider the uplink multiple-access channel (MAC) and derive the capacity/achievable rate regions for both deployment strategies under different multiple access schemes. It is shown that the centralized deployment generally outperforms the distributed deployment under symmetric channel setups in terms of achievable user rates. Next, we extend the results to the downlink broadcast channel (BC) by leveraging the celebrated uplink-downlink (or MAC-BC) duality framework, and show that the superior rate performance of centralized over distributed deployment also holds. Numerical results are presented that validate our analysis, and reveal new and useful insights for optimal IRS deployment in wireless networks.
Wireless communication is susceptible to eavesdropping attacks because of its broadcast nature. This paper illustrates how interference can be used to counter eavesdropping and assist secrecy. In particular, a wire-tap channel with a helping interferer (WT-HI) is considered. Here, a transmitter sends a confidential message to its intended receiver in the presence of a passive eavesdropper and with the help of an independent interferer. The interferer, which does not know the confidential message, helps in ensuring the secrecy of the message by sending an independent signal. An achievable secrecy rate and several computable outer bounds on the secrecy capacity of the WT-HI are given for both discrete memoryless and Gaussian channels.
Wireless communication is susceptible to adversarial eavesdropping due to the broadcast nature of the wireless medium. In this paper it is shown how eavesdropping can be alleviated by exploiting the superposition property of the wireless medium. A wiretap channel with a helping interferer (WT-HI), in which a transmitter sends a confidential message to its intended receiver in the presence of a passive eavesdropper, and with the help of an independent interferer, is considered. The interferer, which does not know the confidential message, helps in ensuring the secrecy of the message by sending independent signals. An achievable secrecy rate for the WT-HI is given. The results show that interference can be exploited to assist secrecy in wireless communications. An important example of the Gaussian case, in which the interferer has a better channel to the intended receiver than to the eavesdropper, is considered. In this situation, the interferer can send a (random) codeword at a rate that ensures that it can be decoded and subtracted from the received signal by the intended receiver but cannot be decoded by the eavesdropper. Hence, only the eavesdropper is interfered with and the secrecy level of the confidential message is increased.
This paper investigates the secret key authentication capacity region. Specifically, the focus is on a model where a source must transmit information over an adversary controlled channel where the adversary, prior to the sources transmission, decides whether or not to replace the destinations observation with an arbitrary one of their choosing (done in hopes of having the destination accept a false message). To combat the adversary, the source and destination share a secret key which they may use to guarantee authenticated communications. The secret key authentication capacity region here is then defined as the region of jointly achievable message rate, authentication rate, and key consumption rate (i.e., how many bits of secret key are needed). This is the first of a two part study, with the parts differing in how the authentication rate is measured. In this first study the authenticated rate is measured by the traditional metric of the maximum expected probability of false authentication. For this metric, we provide an inner bound which improves on those existing in the literature. This is achieved by adopting and merging different classical techniques in novel ways. Within these classical techniques, one technique derives authentication capability directly from the noisy communications channel, and the other technique derives its authentication capability directly from obscuring the source.