Secret-Message Transmission by Echoing Encrypted Probes -- STEEP

Abstract

This paper examines the properties of the lower and upper bounds established by Maurer, Ahlswede and Csiszar (MAC) for secret-key capacity in the case of channel probing over single-input and single-output (SISO) channels. Inspired by the insights into MAC's bounds, a scheme called secret-message transmission by echoing encrypted probes (STEEP) is proposed. STEEP consists of two phases: in phase 1, Alice sends random probes over a probing channel to Bob; in phase 2, Bob echoes back an estimated version of the probes, but encrypted by a secret, over a high-quality return channel. Provided that Eve is unable to obtain the exact probes transmitted by Alice in phase 1, STEEP guarantees a positive secrecy rate from Bob to Alice over the return channel even if Eve's channel strength during channel probing is stronger than Bob's. STEEP is applicable to both physical layer and upper layers in connected networks.