Covert communications when the warden does not know the background noise power

Dennis Goeckel; Boulat Bash; Saikat Guha; Don Towsley

doi:10.1109/LCOMM.2015.2507594

Covert communications when the warden does not know the background noise power

Dennis Goeckel, Boulat Bash, Saikat Guha, Don Towsley

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

122 Scopus citations

Abstract

If the warden Willie attempting to detect the transmission knows the statistics of his receiver noise, Alice can transmit no more than O(√n) covert bits reliably to Bob in n channel uses of an AWGN channel. However, if Willie does not know his noise statistics exactly, Alice can covertly transmit O(n) bits. In this letter, Willie lacks knowledge of his channel statistics but observes T(n) length-n codeword slots, where some number may be used by Alice to attempt covert transmission. We show that Willie can often limit Alice to the same performance scaling as when he knows his channel statistics.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	2507594
Pages (from-to)	236-239
Number of pages	4
Journal	IEEE Communications Letters
Volume	20
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/LCOMM.2015.2507594
State	Published - Feb 1 2016
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Digital communication, signal detection, security

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Modeling and Simulation
Computer Science Applications
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Access to Document

10.1109/LCOMM.2015.2507594

Cite this

@article{360a00cccf7e48d9bb165f9dc6869c50,

title = "Covert communications when the warden does not know the background noise power",

abstract = "If the warden Willie attempting to detect the transmission knows the statistics of his receiver noise, Alice can transmit no more than O(√n) covert bits reliably to Bob in n channel uses of an AWGN channel. However, if Willie does not know his noise statistics exactly, Alice can covertly transmit O(n) bits. In this letter, Willie lacks knowledge of his channel statistics but observes T(n) length-n codeword slots, where some number may be used by Alice to attempt covert transmission. We show that Willie can often limit Alice to the same performance scaling as when he knows his channel statistics.",

keywords = "Digital communication, signal detection, security",

author = "Dennis Goeckel and Boulat Bash and Saikat Guha and Don Towsley",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2015 IEEE.",

year = "2016",

month = feb,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1109/LCOMM.2015.2507594",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "20",

pages = "236--239",

journal = "IEEE Communications Letters",

issn = "1089-7798",

publisher = "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.",

number = "2",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Covert communications when the warden does not know the background noise power

AU - Goeckel, Dennis

AU - Bash, Boulat

AU - Guha, Saikat

AU - Towsley, Don

PY - 2016/2/1

Y1 - 2016/2/1

N2 - If the warden Willie attempting to detect the transmission knows the statistics of his receiver noise, Alice can transmit no more than O(√n) covert bits reliably to Bob in n channel uses of an AWGN channel. However, if Willie does not know his noise statistics exactly, Alice can covertly transmit O(n) bits. In this letter, Willie lacks knowledge of his channel statistics but observes T(n) length-n codeword slots, where some number may be used by Alice to attempt covert transmission. We show that Willie can often limit Alice to the same performance scaling as when he knows his channel statistics.

AB - If the warden Willie attempting to detect the transmission knows the statistics of his receiver noise, Alice can transmit no more than O(√n) covert bits reliably to Bob in n channel uses of an AWGN channel. However, if Willie does not know his noise statistics exactly, Alice can covertly transmit O(n) bits. In this letter, Willie lacks knowledge of his channel statistics but observes T(n) length-n codeword slots, where some number may be used by Alice to attempt covert transmission. We show that Willie can often limit Alice to the same performance scaling as when he knows his channel statistics.

KW - Digital communication, signal detection, security

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84959322658&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84959322658&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1109/LCOMM.2015.2507594

DO - 10.1109/LCOMM.2015.2507594

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84959322658

SN - 1089-7798

VL - 20

SP - 236

EP - 239

JO - IEEE Communications Letters

JF - IEEE Communications Letters

IS - 2

M1 - 2507594

ER -

Covert communications when the warden does not know the background noise power

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this