WiSe 21/22: Foundations of Information-Theoretic Security
Gerhard Wunder
Additional information / Pre-requisites
Literature
Matthieu Bloch and Joao Barros: Physical Layer Security: From Information Theory to Security Engineering. Cambridge University Press, 2011
Comments
In this lecture, the fundamentals and paradigms of information-theoretical security (ITS) are conveyed, i.e. security mechanisms that cannot be traced back to "solving a difficult problem". ITS should come into play in future communication systems (e.g. evolutionary path from 5G to 6G or WiFi-6) and addresses essential aspects of new services such as the IoT, the tactile Internet, etc., especially with regard to scalable, fast and also user-manageable security ("Usability "). Another aspect that is frequently mentioned is security for the post-quantum age. Generally speaking, ITS uses the properties of the transmission channel in a targeted manner, e.g. through tap-proof coding or by generating a shared secret ("common information") about the specific properties of the complex electromagnetic wave propagation in the transmission medium.
Content:
- What is perfect security? Attacks on Diffie-Hellman and RSA, key management in scalable systems
--Fundamental inequalities and set characterizations (Jensen, Caratheodory, ...)
- Basics of information theory (conditional entropy, transinformation, AEP, Method of types, Shannon sentences, multi-user systems, Slepian-Wolf, basics of coding, ...)
- Encryption systems and crypto-metrics (fundamental theorems, pure ciphers and residual classes, distance measure for distribtions, Pinsker's inequality, semantic security, min-entropy, optimal hypothesis tests and attacks, ...)
- Basics of wiretap coding (degraded channel, achievable rate region, Coset coding, crypto designs, universal hash lemma, Ramanujan graphs, ...)
--Secret key generation (Mauer’s scheme, key capacity, reconciliation protocols such as Cascade, privacy amplification, extractors, fuzzy extractor, BCH designs, “from weak to strong security”,...)
--Outlook to 6G, Bluetooth 5.1, Wifi-6
closeSuggested reading
Matthieu Bloch and Joao Barros: Physical Layer Security: From Information Theory to Security Engineering. Cambridge University Press, 2011
32 Class schedule
Regular appointments