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We consider the problem of authenticating communication over a Myopic Binary Adversarial Channel (MBAC) while maintaining covertness with respect to the myopic adversary. When the main channel between legitimate parties is degraded with respect to the adversary's channel, we show the existence of an integrated scheme that simultaneously exploits secret keys to ensure covertness and authentication. The main technical challenge we address is showing that authentication may be ensured against myopic attacks when using the low-weight codewords mandated by covert communication.
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Keyless Covert Communication in the Presence of Non-causal Channel State Information
We consider the problem of covert communication over a state-dependent channel, for which the transmitter and the legitimate receiver have non-causal access to the channel state information. Covert communication with respect to an adversary, referred to as the “warden,” is one in which the distribution induced during communication at the channel output observed by the warden is identical to the output distribution conditioned on an inactive channel-input symbol. Covert communication involves fooling an adversary in part by a proliferation of codebooks; for reliable decoding at the legitimate receiver the codebook uncertainty is removed via a shared secret key that is unavailable to the warden. Unlike earlier work in state-dependent covert communication, we do not assume the availability of a shared key at the transmitter and legitimate receiver. Rather, a shared randomness is extracted at the transmitter and the receiver from the channel state, in a manner that keeps the shared randomness secret from the warden despite the influence of the channel state on the warden’s output. An inner bound on the covert capacity, in the absence of an externally provided secret key, is derived.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1514050
- PAR ID:
- 10112769
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IEEE Information Theory Workshop
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
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- The DOI is not currently available.
