TC: Small: Collaborative Research: Exploiting Network Dynamics for Secret Key Generation

无线网络中的密钥管理是一个非常具有挑战性的问题，因为传输介质不可靠，缺乏网络基础设施，以及终端严格的能量和复杂性限制。最近，人们对利用物理层动态来生成密钥越来越感兴趣。然而，现有的方案仅利用点对点信道或基本小型无线系统中的信道动态，而没有利用多用户无线网络固有的其他丰富的动态。此外，目前的研究主要集中在成对密钥协商问题上，而没有解决网络中用户交互所产生的问题。该项目为大规模网络开发了实用的密钥生成方案，该方案1)充分利用网络动态所固有的丰富机会，2)适当地解决网络中多个用户之间的交互所引起的问题。研究的主题包括单播和/或多播密钥生成、不经意的中继辅助密钥生成以及多用户之间的秘密共享。本项目的目标是设计具有工程意义和实用可行性的传输协议和算法。此外，这些协议和算法在试验台上进行了实现和测试。这个项目也有很强的教育成分。除了为研究生提供论文主题外，该项目还为通信安全的本科生教育提供了动手实验机会。

Key management in wireless networks is a very challenging problem because of the unreliable transmission medium, the lack of network infrastructure, and stringent energy and complexity limitations at terminals. Recently, there has been increased interest in exploiting physical layer dynamics to generate keys. However, existing schemes exploit only the channel dynamics in the point-to-point channel or basic small wireless systems, but not other rich dynamics inherent to multiuser wireless networks. Furthermore, current studies focus mainly on the pairwise key agreement problem, and did not address issues arising from user interactions in networks. This project develops practical key generation schemes for large scale networks, which 1) fully exploit rich opportunities inherent to network dynamics, and 2) properly address issues arising from interaction among multiple users in networks. Topics including unicast and/or multicast key generation, oblivious relay-assisted key generation, and secret sharing among multiple users are investigated. The goal of this project is to design transmission protocols and algorithms that have engineering impact and practical feasibility. Furthermore, these protocols and algorithms are implemented and tested on a testbed. This project also has strong education components. In addition to providing thesis topics for graduate students, this project provides hands-on lab opportunities for undergraduate education on communication security.