Using mm-Waves for Secret Key Establishment

TL;DR

This paper proposes using the directional nature of mmWave communication to enable unconditionally secure secret key sharing, demonstrating its potential in WiFi and vehicle platooning with promising results.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method leveraging mmWave directionality for secret key establishment, combining physical layer properties with packet erasures for security.

Findings

Establishes hundreds of secret bits with minimal protocol changes

Potential to generate keys at tenths of Mbps

Applicable to WiFi and vehicle platooning scenarios

Abstract

The fact that Millimeter Wave (mmWave) communication needs to be directional is usually perceived as a challenge; in this paper we argue that it enables efficient secret key sharing that are unconditionally secure from passive eavesdroppers, by building on packet erasures. We showcase the potential of our approach in two setups: mmWave-based WiFi networks and vehicle platooning. We show that in the first case, we can establish a few hundred secret bits with minimal changes to standard communication protocol; while in both cases, with the right choice of parameters, we can potentially establish keys in the order of tenths of Mbps. These first results are based on some simplifying assumptions, yet we believe they give incentives to further explore such techniques.