Lattices for Physical-layer Secrecy: A Computational Perspective

TL;DR

This paper proposes a physical-layer secrecy system based on lattice hardness, leveraging channel asymmetry to create a cryptosystem that is efficiently decodable for legitimate users but computationally hard for eavesdroppers.

Contribution

It introduces a novel lattice-based cryptosystem for physical-layer security that exploits channel asymmetry and lattice quantization complexity.

Findings

Legitimate receiver can decode efficiently using known lattice techniques.

Eavesdropper faces computational hardness similar to lattice quantization.

System provides a new approach to physical-layer secrecy leveraging lattice problems.

Abstract

In this paper, we use the hardness of quantization over general lattices as the basis of developing a physical layer secrecy system. Assuming that the channel state observed by the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper are distinct, this asymmetry is used to develop a cryptosystem that resembles the McEliece cryptosystem, designed to be implemented at the physical layer. We ensure that the legitimate receiver observes a specific lattice over which decoding is known to be possible in polynomial-time. while the eavesdropper observes a lattice over which decoding will prove to have the complexity of lattice quantization over a general lattice