Covert communication with the help of an uninformed jammer achieves positive rate

Tamara V. Sobers, Boulat A. Bash, Dennis Goeckel, Saikat Guha, Don Towsley

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recent work has established that when transmitter Alice wishes to communicate reliably to recipient Bob without detection by warden Willie, with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels between all parties, communication is limited to O(√n) bits in n channel uses. However, this result is predicated on Willie having an accurate statistical characterization of the background noise. When Willie has uncertainty about his noise characteristics and his receiver is limited to a power detector, O(n) bits can be covertly delivered. Here, we establish covert communication of O(n) bits in n channel uses while: (i) generalizing the environment; and (ii) removing any restrictions on Willie's receiver. We consider the case where an additional node, called the "jammer", is present to help Alice and Bob communicate covertly. This jammer is termed "uninformed", as it does not know the content or timing of Alice's transmission. We consider both AWGN channels and a scenario with a block faded jammer with a single fade per codeword. In these scenarios, we are able to establish the optimality of the power detector for Willie, from which the achievability of reliable and covert communication at a positive rate follows.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationConference Record of the 49th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers, ACSSC 2015
EditorsMichael B. Matthews
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages625-629
Number of pages5
ISBN (Electronic)9781467385763
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 26 2016
Externally publishedYes
Event49th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers, ACSSC 2015 - Pacific Grove, United States
Duration: Nov 8 2015Nov 11 2015

Publication series

NameConference Record - Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers
Volume2016-February
ISSN (Print)1058-6393

Other

Other49th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers, ACSSC 2015
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPacific Grove
Period11/8/1511/11/15

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Signal Processing
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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