Evaluation of Real-World Information Theoretic Security Scenarios
Daniel Harman
Abstract:
Information-Theoretic Security is a proposed method of adding additional security to the physical layer through the use of novel and clever schemes, such as secrecy coding. To evaluate the performance of these schemes, we use the metric of secrecy capacity in a given environment. By measuring secrecy capacity, we can evaluate how security can be achieved in various real-world scenarios. To measure secrecy capacity, we perform channel estimation both as a function of time and location in real-world scenarios such as office setups, residences, public access areas such as cafes and study halls, and commercial settings. This allows us to evaluate the wiretap model, understanding where information-theoretic security is viable and how additional security measures are best employed. By using off-the-shelf hardware to perform channel estimation we more effectively simulate eavesdropping scenarios. Additionally, we also explore efficient numerical methods for solving the general form of the multi-antenna secrecy capacity formula as it is an ill-conditioned optimization problem.