CAREER: Digital Encoding of Information Signals for Security with Limited Resources

职业：信息信号数字编码以确保资源有限的安全

• 批准号: 1350595
• 负责人: Paul Cuff
• 金额: $ 45万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-02-01 至 2020-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1350595&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Digital; Encoding; Information; Signals

Technical Description:Information signals are abundant in modern complex systems, and the encoding needed to provide security during communication and storage becomes one of many important security concerns. This research project will develop theory and technology for providing a critical degree of security to information signals, which will allow an engineer to optimize the tradeoff between the expense of security resources and the security guarantees that the system can provide. The underpinnings of this work are information theoretic in nature. The Pincipal Investigator has demonstrated the emergence of new theory for understanding partial secrecy.Much of the focus in secure communication research is on mechanisms for providing security resources, usually in the form of a private authenticated channel or an authenticated secret key. This might be accomplished through cryptography, information theoretic physical layer security, or quantum key exchange. This project will address the question of how to efficiently use those resources to protect signals (source coding). Prior information theory literature on secure source coding typically either is limited to perfect secrecy or uses normalized mutual information as a metric for the level of secrecy provided. This project has two key innovations. First, privacy guarantees come in the form of limits on what an adversary can do with eavesdropped information. This is measured, for example, by average distortion or payoff guarantees, analogous to rate-distortion theory. Second, an adversary is assumed to independently obtain additional information about the signals in real time, to assist in their attack. These innovations have already lead to interesting theoretical discoveries as well as unusual encoding and stochastic decoding mechanisms for efficiently achieving secrecy.The plan for this project involves investigating the theoretical implications of important practical constraints, such as delay in the communication, delay in the adversary's information, uncertainty about the information signal, complex signals, multi-user settings, etc. These theoretical results provide guidelines for how secrecy should be designed. To bridge theory to application, this project has two areas of emphasis. The first is a study of the use of cryptography as the security resource. This involves complexity analyses of the codecs used as well as a theoretical understanding of the consequences of differing types of resources (i.e., private channel vs. secret key). The second is the application of these technologies to secure distributed control.Broader Significance and Importance:Security is relevant to important societal infrastructure, such as energy, transportation, and communication networks. This project aims to fill an important gap in information theory and the understanding of digital communications. Although a rich mathematical theory for encoding and compression of information is known in the field, the security counterpart to this theory, which incorporates constraints on security resources, is conspicuously lacking. This project aims to provide new fundamental understanding to the field.The educational component of this project will engage in the swelling movement of high quality and freely available education resources. Princeton University has recently partnered with Coursera, a non-profit organization that collaborates with research and education institutions to provide open (free) access to high quality education. This mode of teaching not only increases outreach but enables innovative teaching features through technology. The P.I. has engaged with Coursera to create an undergraduate signals and systems course. Additionally, he will create and teach graduate courses containing research discoveries from this project.This funding will support Ph.D. students in their education and research. The P.I. has a track record of mentoring female students (two out of six current Ph.D students). Undergraduates are also incorporated into the discovery process through independent work mentoring.

信息信号在现代复杂系统中非常丰富，在通信和存储过程中提供安全性所需的编码成为许多重要的安全问题之一。 该研究项目将开发理论和技术，为信息信号提供关键程度的安全性，这将使工程师能够优化安全资源的费用和系统可以提供的安全保证之间的权衡。 这项工作的基础是信息理论的性质。 PinUNRInvestigator已经证明了理解部分保密性的新理论的出现。安全通信研究的大部分焦点是提供安全资源的机制，通常以私人认证通道或认证密钥的形式。 这可以通过密码学、信息理论物理层安全或量子密钥交换来实现。 该项目将解决如何有效地利用这些资源来保护信号（源编码）的问题。 关于安全信源编码的现有信息论文献通常限于完全保密或使用归一化互信息作为所提供的保密级别的度量。 该项目有两个关键创新。 首先，隐私保障的形式是限制对手可以对窃听信息做什么。 这是衡量，例如，平均失真或支付保证，类似于率失真理论。 第二，假设对手独立地获得关于真实的时间的信号的附加信息，以协助他们的攻击。 这些创新已经导致了有趣的理论发现，以及不寻常的编码和随机解码机制，有效地实现保密。该项目的计划涉及调查的重要实际约束，如通信延迟，在对手的信息延迟，信息信号的不确定性，复杂的信号，多用户设置，这些理论结果为如何设计保密性提供了指导。 为了将理论与应用联系起来，该项目有两个重点领域。 第一个是使用密码学作为安全资源的研究。 这涉及对所使用的编解码器的复杂性分析以及对不同类型的资源（即，私有信道对秘密密钥）。 第二个是应用这些技术来确保分布式控制的安全。更广泛的意义和重要性：安全与重要的社会基础设施相关，例如能源、交通和通信网络。 该项目旨在填补信息理论和数字通信理解的重要空白。尽管在该领域中已知用于信息的编码和压缩的丰富的数学理论，但是与该理论对应的安全性（其结合了对安全性资源的约束）明显缺乏。 该项目旨在为该领域提供新的基本认识。该项目的教育部分将参与高质量和免费教育资源的膨胀运动。 普林斯顿大学最近与Coursera合作，Coursera是一家非营利性组织，与研究和教育机构合作，提供开放（免费）的高质量教育。 这种教学模式不仅扩大了覆盖面，而且通过技术实现了创新的教学功能。 私家侦探与Coursera合作创建了一门本科信号与系统课程。 此外，他还将创建和教授包含该项目研究发现的研究生课程。学生的教育和研究。 私家侦探有指导女学生的记录（目前六名博士生中有两名）。 本科生也通过独立的工作指导纳入发现过程。