Electronics Letters (May 2024)

A coding scheme to force the eavesdropper falling in error avalanche

  • Hang Zhao,
  • Aiqun Hu,
  • Jiabao Yu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1049/ell2.13200
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 60, no. 10
pp. n/a – n/a

Abstract

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Abstract In recent years, key generation schemes based on the reciprocity of wireless channels have gained widespread attention in the field of wireless physical layer security. However, due to the openness of wireless channels, eavesdroppers may obtain partial legitimate keys by eavesdropping on the wireless channel. To address this issue, this paper proposes a wireless channel coding scheme that induces an “avalanche” of errors for eavesdroppers, which could maximize eavesdropper's bit error rate. The design of this scheme is based on the significant differences between the eavesdropping channel and the legitimate channel, and the average bit key disagreement ratio of the keys generated by the legitimate channel is around 8%. The scheme selects polar codes with strong error correction capabilities and chooses a coding rate matching the error level of the legitimate channel, forcing the eavesdropping channel's error rate into an “avalanche” state, where the error rate approaches 50%. This paper presents the structure of the encoder and determines the coding rate through simulation. Simulation results demonstrate that this scheme can significantly degrade the error rate of the eavesdropping channel while ensuring the prevention of eavesdroppers from obtaining secret information transmitted through the legitimate channel.

Keywords