Channel Independent Cryptographic Key Distribution

Abstract

This paper presents a method of cryptographic key distribution using an `artificially' noisy channel. This is an important development because, while it is known that a noisy channel can be used to generate unconditional secrecy, there are many circumstances in which it is not possible to have a noisy information exchange, such as in error corrected communication stacks. It is shown that two legitimate parties can simulate a noisy channel by adding local noise onto the communication and that the simulated channel has a secrecy capacity even if the underlying channel does not. A derivation of the secrecy conditions is presented along with numerical simulations of the channel function to show that key exchange is feasible.