Secure network code over one-hop relay network

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that non-linear coding schemes can significantly enhance security in one-hop relay networks under attack, outperforming linear codes in preventing information leakage even with sequential errors.

Contribution

It reveals the superiority of non-linear codes over linear codes for secure communication in one-hop relay networks under attack scenarios.

Findings

Non-linear codes improve security performance over linear codes.

Non-linear codes achieve imperfect security not possible with linear codes.

Sequential error injection does not negate the advantage of non-linear codes.

Abstract

When there exists a malicious attacker in the network, we need to consider the possibilities of eavesdropping and the contamination simultaneously. Under an acyclic broadcast network, the optimality of linear codes was shown when Eve is allowed to attack any $r$ edges. The optimality of linear codes is not shown under a different assumption for Eve. As a typical example of an acyclic unicast network, we focus on the one-hop relay network under the single transmission scheme by assuming that Eve attacks only one edge in each level. Surprisingly, as a result, we find that a non-linear code significantly improves the performance on the one-hop relay network over linear codes. That is, a non-liner code realizes the imperfect security on this model that cannot be realized by linear codes. This kind of superiority of a linear code still holds even with considering the effect of sequential error injection on information leakage.