CIF: Small: Key Dissemination over Networks

共享随机性的资源，即，共享密钥在网络通信系统的理论和实践中起着基础性的作用。在一些网络用户之间共享并且有时对其他用户隐藏的均匀分布的密钥在各种通信任务中作为中央资源出现，例如安全通信、私有通信、分布式计算、统计推断、分布式学习等。鉴于共享随机性在现代技术关键应用中的核心作用，设计支持密钥在网络上传播的高效高速率通信方案具有重要意义。传统的密钥分发方案将密钥视为源生成的消息，因此不一定受益于密钥分发任务所固有的某些灵活性。该项目承担了开发量身定制的通信方案以适应密钥分发任务的挑战，因此该项目提出了预计将影响资源受限网络系统中共享随机性分布的新技术。传统的通信研究解决了消息从其生成源到其预期目的地的传输，可以用于（安全地）建立共享密钥。然而，这样的方法在共享随机密钥的上下文中是次优的，因为分发密钥仅需要共享随机性的分发;分发密钥不需要重构源信息。去除源重构的要求赠款通信过程以灵活性，当与需要源重构的传统形式的通信相比时，这引起增加的密钥速率的潜力。该项目通过网络编码的方法，在复杂的多源多终端网络的背景下，启动密钥分发的研究，并寻求一个全面的理论，无噪声和噪声的网络拓扑结构。通过放弃传统的通信要求来重建源，而只关注重建公共随机性，该研究有望产生有效的、高速率的通信策略，其性能优于传统方案，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.

The resource of shared randomness, i.e., shared keys, plays a fundamental role in the theory and practice of network communication systems. A uniformly distributed key, shared among some network users and, at times, hidden from others, appears as a central resource in a variety of communication tasks such as secure communication, private communication, distributed computing, statistical inference, distributed learning, and more. Given the central role of shared randomness in applications critical to modern technology, there is significant importance in the design of efficient high-rate communication schemes that support key dissemination over networks. Traditional schemes for key distribution treat keys as source-generated messages and as such do not necessarily benefit from certain flexibilities that are inherent to the task of key dissemination. This project takes up the challenge of developing communication schemes tailor-made to fit the task of key dissemination, and as such the project suggests novel technology expected to impact the distribution of shared randomness in resource-constrained network systems. Traditional studies of communication, which address the transfer of messages from their source of generation to their intended destination, may be used to (securely) establish shared keys. However, such a methodology is suboptimal in the context of shared random keys, since distributing keys requires only the distribution of shared randomness; distributing keys does not require the reconstruction of source information. Removing the requirement of source reconstruction grants a flexibility to the communication process which gives rise to the potential of increased key-rates when compared to traditional forms of communication that require source reconstruction. This project initiates the study of key dissemination in the context of complex multi-source multi-terminal networks through the methodology of network coding, and seeks a comprehensive theory for both noiseless and noisy network topologies. By foregoing the traditional communication requirement to reconstruct sources and focusing instead only on reconstructing common randomness, the research is expected to yield efficient, high-rate communication strategies, that outperform traditional schemes, thereby advancing the area of key dissemination.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.