Physical Layer based Message Authentication with Secure Channel Codes

• Published in: IEEE transactions on dependable and secure computing Vol. 17; no. 5; pp. 1079 - 1093
• Main Authors: Chen, Dajiang, Zhang, Ning, Cheng, Nan, Zhang, Kuan, Qin, Zhiguang, Shen, Xuemin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington IEEE 01.09.2020; IEEE Computer Society
• Subjects: Authentication; Authentication protocols; Channel coding; Channel models; Computer simulation; Electronic surveillance; Infinity; Information theory; LFSR-based hash functions; Message authentication; Physical layer; Physical layer security; polar codes; Polynomials; Protocols; strong secure channel coding; Theorems; wiretap channel; Wiretapping
• ISSN: 1545-5971; 1941-0018
• DOI: 10.1109/TDSC.2018.2846258

In this paper, we investigate physical (PHY) layer message authentication to combat adversaries with infinite computational capacity. Specifically, a PHY-layer authentication framework over a wiretap channel (<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">W_1,W_2</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>W</mml:mi><mml:mn>1</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:mo>,</mml:mo><mml:msub><mml:mi>W</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="zhang-ieq1-2846258.gif"/> </inline-formula>) is proposed to achieve information-theoretic security with the same key. We develop a theorem to reveal the requirements/conditions for the authentication framework to be information-theoretic secure for authenticating a polynomial number of messages in terms of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">n</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mi>n</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="zhang-ieq2-2846258.gif"/> </inline-formula>. Based on this theorem, we design an authentication protocol that can guarantee the security requirements, and prove its authentication rate can approach infinity when <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">n</tex-math> <mml:math><mml:mi>n</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="zhang-ieq3-2846258.gif"/> </inline-formula> goes to infinity. Furthermore, we design and implement a feasible and efficient message authentication protocol over binary symmetric wiretap channel (BSWC) by using Linear Feedback Shifting Register based (LFSR-based) hash functions and strong secure polar code. Through extensive simulations, it is demonstrated that the proposed protocol can achieve high authentication rate, with low time cost and authentication error rate.