Rate-Distortion-Based Physical Layer Secrecy with Applications to Multimode Fiber

TL;DR

This paper explores physical layer security in multimode fiber optical networks using rate-distortion theory, proposing coding schemes and analyzing the tradeoff between transmission rate and eavesdropper distortion.

Contribution

It introduces a rate-distortion-based framework for physical layer secrecy in MMF, providing theoretical bounds and practical coding schemes for maximizing eavesdropper distortion.

Findings

Maximum distortion achieved at the same rate as reliable transmission

Operational source-channel coding guarantees high eavesdropper distortion

Numerical results illustrate the rate-distortion tradeoff in MMF

Abstract

Optical networks are vulnerable to physical layer attacks; wiretappers can improperly receive messages intended for legitimate recipients. Our work considers an aspect of this security problem within the domain of multimode fiber (MMF) transmission. MMF transmission can be modeled via a broadcast channel in which both the legitimate receiver's and wiretapper's channels are multiple-input-multiple-output complex Gaussian channels. Source-channel coding analyses based on the use of distortion as the metric for secrecy are developed. Alice has a source sequence to be encoded and transmitted over this broadcast channel so that the legitimate user Bob can reliably decode while forcing the distortion of wiretapper, or eavesdropper, Eve's estimate as high as possible. Tradeoffs between transmission rate and distortion under two extreme scenarios are examined: the best case where Eve has only her channel output and the worst case where she also knows the past realization of the source. It is shown that under the best case, an operationally separate source-channel coding scheme guarantees maximum distortion at the same rate as needed for reliable transmission. Theoretical bounds are given, and particularized for MMF. Numerical results showing the rate distortion tradeoff are presented and compared with corresponding results for the perfect secrecy case.