arXiv subjects

J. Harshan

Publications and source records attributed to J. Harshan.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Convolution Attack on Frequency-Hopping by Full-Duplex Radios

We propose a new adversarial attack on frequency-hopping based wireless communication between two users, namely Alice and Bob. In this attack, the adversary, referred to as Eve, instantaneously modifies the transmitted signal by Alice before forwarding it to Bob within the symbol-period. We show that this attack forces Bob to incorporate Eve's signal in the decoding process; otherwise, treating it as noise would further degrade the performance akin to jamming. Through this attack, we show that Eve can convert a slow-fading channel between Alice and Bob to a rapid-fading one by modifying every transmitted symbol independently. As a result, neither pilot-assisted coherent detection techniques nor blind-detection methods are directly applicable as countermeasures. As potential mitigation strategies, we explore the applicability of frequency-hopping along with (i) On-Off keying (OOK) and (ii) Binary Frequency-Shift-Keying (FSK) as modulation schemes. In the case of OOK, the attacker attempts to introduce deep-fades on the tone carrying the information bit, whereas in the case of BFSK, the attacker pours comparable energy levels on the tones carrying bit-$0$ and bit-$1$, thereby degrading the performance. Based on extensive analyses and experimental results, we show that (i) when using OOK, Bob must be equipped with a large number of receive antennas to reliably detect Alice's signal, and (ii) when using BFSK, Alice and Bob must agree upon a secret-key to randomize the location of the tones carrying the bits, in addition to randomizing the carrier-frequency of communication.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2018

Full-Diversity Space-Time Block Codes for Integer-Forcing Linear Receivers

In multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) fading channels, the design criterion for full-diversity space-time block codes (STBCs) is primarily determined by the decoding method at the receiver. Although constructions of STBCs have predominantly matched the maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder, design criteria and constructions of full-diversity STBCs have also been reported for low-complexity linear receivers. A new receiver architecture called Integer-Forcing (IF) linear receiver has been proposed to MIMO channels by Zhan et al. which showed promising results for the high-rate V-BLAST encoding scheme. In this paper, we address the design of full-diversity STBCs for IF linear receivers. In particular, we are interested in characterizing the structure of STBCs that provide full-diversity with the IF receiver. Along that direction, we derive an upper bound on the probability of decoding error, and show that STBCs that satisfy the restricted non-vanishing singular value (RNVS) property provide full-diversity for the IF receiver. Furthermore, we prove that all known STBCs with the non-vanishing determinant property provide full-diversity with IF receivers, as they guarantee the RNVS property. By using the formulation of RNVS property, we also prove the existence of a full-diversity STBC outside the class of perfect STBCs, thereby adding significant insights compared to the existing works on STBCs with IF decoding. Finally, we present extensive simulation results to demonstrate that linear designs with RNVS property provide full-diversity for IF receiver.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2018

Cognitive Radio from Hell: Flipping Attack on Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum

In this paper, we introduce a strong adversarial attack, referred to as the flipping attack, on Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) systems. In this attack, the attacker, which is appropriately positioned between the transmitter and the receiver, instantaneously flips the transmitted symbols in the air at 50% rate, thereby driving the channel capacity to zero. Unlike the traditional jamming attack, this attack, when perfectly executed, cannot be detected at the receiver using signal-to-noise-ratio measurements. However, this attack necessitates the attacker to perfectly know the realizations of all the channels in the model. We first introduce the consequences of the flipping attack on narrowband frequency-flat channels, and subsequently discuss its feasibility in wideband frequency-selective channels. From the legitimate users' perspective, we present a method to detect this attack and also propose heuristics to improve the error-performance under the attack. We emphasize that future cyber-physical systems that employ DSSS should design transceivers to detect the proposed flipping attack, and then apply appropriate countermeasures.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2017

Performance of Lattice Coset Codes on Universal Software Radio Peripherals

We consider an experimental setup of three USRPs that implement a wiretap channel, two USRPs are the legitimate players Alice and Bob, while the third USRP is the eavesdropper, whose position we vary to evaluate information leakage. The experimented channels are close to slow fading channels, and coset coding of lattice constellations is used for transmission, allowing to introduce controlled randomness at the transmitter. Simulation and measurement results show to which extent coset coding can provide confidentiality, as a function of Eve's position, and the amount of randomness used.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2017

Integer-Forcing Linear Receivers: A Design Criterion for Full-Diversity STBCs

In multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) fading channels, the design criterion for full-diversity space-time block codes (STBCs) is primarily determined by the decoding method at the receiver. Although constructions of STBCs have predominantly matched the maximum-likelihood (ML) decoder, design criteria and constructions of full-diversity STBCs have also been reported for low-complexity linear receivers. A new receiver architecture called Integer-Forcing (IF) linear receiver has been proposed to MIMO channels by Zhan et al. which showed promising results for the high-rate V-BLAST encoding scheme. In this work we address the design of full-diversity STBCs for IF linear receivers. We derive an upper bound on the probability of decoding error, and show that STBCs that satisfy the non-vanishing singular value (NVS) property provide full-diversity for the IF receiver. We also present simulation results to demonstrate that linear designs with NVS property provide full diversity for IF receiver. As a special case of our analysis on STBCs, we present an upper bound on the error probability for the V-BLAST architecture presented by Zhan \emph{et al.}, and demonstrate that the IF linear receivers provide full receive diversity. Our results supplement the existing outage probability based results for the IF receiver.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2017

Insider-Attacks on Physical-Layer Group Secret-Key Generation in Wireless Networks

Physical-layer group secret-key (GSK) generation is an effective way of generating secret keys in wireless networks, wherein the nodes exploit inherent randomness in the wireless channels to generate group keys, which are subsequently applied to secure messages while broadcasting, relaying, and other network-level communications. While existing GSK protocols focus on securing the common source of randomness from external eavesdroppers, they assume that the legitimate nodes of the group are trusted. In this paper, we address insider attacks from the legitimate participants of the wireless network during the key generation process. Instead of addressing conspicuous attacks such as switching-off communication, injecting noise, or denying consensus on group keys, we introduce stealth attacks that can go undetected against state-of-the-art GSK schemes. We propose two forms of attacks, namely: (i) different-key attacks, wherein an insider attempts to generate different keys at different nodes, especially across nodes that are out of range so that they fail to recover group messages despite possessing the group key, and (ii) low-rate key attacks, wherein an insider alters the common source of randomness so as to reduce the key-rate. We also discuss various detection techniques, which are based on detecting anomalies and inconsistencies on the channel measurements at the legitimate nodes. Through simulations we show that GSK generation schemes are vulnerable to insider-threats, especially on topologies that cannot support additional secure links between neighbouring nodes to verify the attacks.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2015

Compressed Differential Erasure Codes for Efficient Archival of Versioned Data

In this paper, we study the problem of storing an archive of versioned data in a reliable and efficient manner in distributed storage systems. We propose a new storage technique called differential erasure coding (DEC) where the differences (deltas) between subsequent versions are stored rather than the whole objects, akin to a typical delta encoding technique. However, unlike delta encoding techniques, DEC opportunistically exploits the sparsity (i.e., when the differences between two successive versions have few non-zero entries) in the updates to store the deltas using compressed sensing techniques applied with erasure coding. We first show that DEC provides significant savings in the storage size for versioned data whenever the update patterns are characterized by in-place alterations. Subsequently, we propose a practical DEC framework so as to reap storage size benefits against not just in-place alterations but also real-world update patterns such as insertions and deletions that alter the overall data sizes. We conduct experiments with several synthetic workloads to demonstrate that the practical variant of DEC provides significant reductions in storage overhead (up to 60\% depending on the workload) compared to baseline storage system which incorporates concepts from Rsync, a delta encoding technique to store and synchronize data across a network.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2014

Sparsity Exploiting Erasure Coding for Resilient Storage and Efficient I/O Access in Delta based Versioning Systems

In this paper we study the problem of storing reliably an archive of versioned data. Specifically, we focus on systems where the differences (deltas) between subsequent versions rather than the whole objects are stored - a typical model for storing versioned data. For reliability, we propose erasure encoding techniques that exploit the sparsity of information in the deltas while storing them reliably in a distributed back-end storage system, resulting in improved I/O read performance to retrieve the whole versioned archive. Along with the basic techniques, we propose a few optimization heuristics, and evaluate the techniques' efficacy analytically and with numerical simulations.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2013

Integer-Forcing MIMO Linear Receivers Based on Lattice Reduction

A new architecture called integer-forcing (IF) linear receiver has been recently proposed for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) fading channels, wherein an appropriate integer linear combination of the received symbols has to be computed as a part of the decoding process. In this paper, we propose a method based on Hermite-Korkine-Zolotareff (HKZ) and Minkowski lattice basis reduction algorithms to obtain the integer coefficients for the IF receiver. We show that the proposed method provides a lower bound on the ergodic rate, and achieves the full receive diversity. Suitability of complex Lenstra-Lenstra-Lovasz (LLL) lattice reduction algorithm (CLLL) to solve the problem is also investigated. Furthermore, we establish the connection between the proposed IF linear receivers and lattice reduction-aided MIMO detectors (with equivalent complexity), and point out the advantages of the former class of receivers over the latter. For the $2 \times 2$ and $4\times 4$ MIMO channels, we compare the coded-block error rate and bit error rate of the proposed approach with that of other linear receivers. Simulation results show that the proposed approach outperforms the zero-forcing (ZF) receiver, minimum mean square error (MMSE) receiver, and the lattice reduction-aided MIMO detectors.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2013

Integer Space-Time Block Codes for Practical MIMO Systems

Full-rate space-time block codes (STBCs) achieve high spectral-efficiency by transmitting linear combinations of information symbols through every transmit antenna. However, the coefficients used for the linear combinations, if not chosen carefully, results in ({\em i}) large number of processor bits for the encoder and ({\em ii}) high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) values. In this work, we propose a new class of full-rate STBCs called Integer STBCs (ICs) for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) fading channels. A unique property of ICs is the presence of integer coefficients in the code structure which enables reduced numbers of processor bits for the encoder and lower PAPR values. We show that the reduction in the number of processor bits is significant for small MIMO channels, while the reduction in the PAPR is significant for large MIMO channels. We also highlight the advantages of the proposed codes in comparison with the well known full-rate algebraic STBCs.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2013

Practical Encoders and Decoders for Euclidean Codes from Barnes-Wall Lattices

In this paper, we address the design of high spectral-efficiency Barnes-Wall (BW) lattice codes which are amenable to low-complexity decoding in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. We propose a new method of constructing complex BW lattice codes from linear codes over polynomial rings, and show that the proposed construction provides an explicit method of bit-labeling complex BW lattice codes. To decode the code, we adapt the low-complexity sequential BW lattice decoder (SBWD) recently proposed by Micciancio and Nicolosi. First, we study the error performance of SBWD in decoding the infinite lattice, wherein we analyze the noise statistics in the algorithm, and propose a new upper bound on its error performance. We show that the SBWD is powerful in making correct decisions well beyond the packing radius. Subsequently, we use the SBWD to decode lattice codes through a novel noise-trimming technique. This is the first work that showcases the error performance of SBWD in decoding BW lattice codes of large block lengths.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2013

On Complex LLL Algorithm for Integer Forcing Linear Receivers

Integer-forcing (IF) linear receiver has been recently introduced for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) fading channels. The receiver has to compute an integer linear combination of the symbols as a part of the decoding process. In particular, the integer coefficients have to be chosen based on the channel realizations, and the choice of such coefficients is known to determine the receiver performance. The original known solution of finding these integers was based on exhaustive search. A practical algorithm based on Hermite-Korkine-Zolotareff (HKZ) and Minkowski lattice reduction algorithms was also proposed recently. In this paper, we propose a low-complexity method based on complex LLL algorithm to obtain the integer coefficients for the IF receiver. For the 2 X 2 MIMO channel, we study the effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of the ergodic rate. We also compare the bit error rate (BER) of our approach with that of other linear receivers, and show that the suggested algorithm outperforms the minimum mean square estimator (MMSE) and zero-forcing (ZF) linear receivers, but trades-off error performance for complexity in comparison with the IF receiver based on exhaustive search or on HKZ and Minkowski lattice reduction algorithms.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2012

A Novel Power Allocation Scheme for Two-User GMAC with Finite Input Constellations

Constellation Constrained (CC) capacity regions of two-user Gaussian Multiple Access Channels (GMAC) have been recently reported, wherein an appropriate angle of rotation between the constellations of the two users is shown to enlarge the CC capacity region. We refer to such a scheme as the Constellation Rotation (CR) scheme. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme called the Constellation Power Allocation (CPA) scheme, wherein the instantaneous transmit power of the two users are varied by maintaining their average power constraints. We show that the CPA scheme offers CC sum capacities equal (at low SNR values) or close (at high SNR values) to those offered by the CR scheme with reduced decoding complexity for QAM constellations. We study the robustness of the CPA scheme for random phase offsets in the channel and unequal average power constraints for the two users. With random phase offsets in the channel, we show that the CC sum capacity offered by the CPA scheme is more than the CR scheme at high SNR values. With unequal average power constraints, we show that the CPA scheme provides maximum gain when the power levels are close, and the advantage diminishes with the increase in the power difference.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2010

Orthogonal vs Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access with Finite Input Alphabet and Finite Bandwidth

For a two-user Gaussian multiple access channel (GMAC), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), a well known orthogonal-multiple-access (O-MA) scheme has been preferred to non-orthogonal-multiple-access (NO-MA) schemes since FDMA can achieve the sum-capacity of the channel with only single-user decoding complexity [\emph{Chapter 14, Elements of Information Theory by Cover and Thomas}]. However, with finite alphabets, in this paper, we show that NO-MA is better than O-MA for a two-user GMAC. We plot the constellation constrained (CC) capacity regions of a two-user GMAC with FDMA and time division multiple access (TDMA) and compare them with the CC capacity regions with trellis coded multiple access (TCMA), a recently introduced NO-MA scheme. Unlike the Gaussian alphabets case, it is shown that the CC capacity region with FDMA is strictly contained inside the CC capacity region with TCMA. In particular, for a given bandwidth, the gap between the CC capacity regions with TCMA and FDMA is shown to increase with the increase in the average power constraint. Also, for a given power constraint, the gap between the CC capacity regions with TCMA and FDMA is shown to decrease with the increase in the bandwidth. Hence, for finite alphabets, a NO-MA scheme such as TCMA is better than the well known O-MAC schemes, FDMA and TDMA which makes NO-MA schemes worth pursuing in practice for a two-user GMAC.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2009

Training-Embedded, Single-Symbol ML-Decodable, Distributed STBCs for Relay Networks

Recently, a special class of complex designs called Training-Embedded Complex Orthogonal Designs (TE-CODs) has been introduced to construct single-symbol Maximum Likelihood (ML) decodable (SSD) distributed space-time block codes (DSTBCs) for two-hop wireless relay networks using the amplify and forward protocol. However, to implement DSTBCs from square TE-CODs, the overhead due to the transmission of training symbols becomes prohibitively large as the number of relays increase. In this paper, we propose TE-Coordinate Interleaved Orthogonal Designs (TE-CIODs) to construct SSD DSTBCs. Exploiting the block diagonal structure of TE-CIODs, we show that, the overhead due to the transmission of training symbols to implement DSTBCs from TE-CIODs is smaller than that for TE-CODs. We also show that DSTBCs from TE-CIODs offer higher rate than those from TE-CODs for identical number of relays while maintaining the SSD and full-diversity properties.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2009

STBCs with Reduced Sphere Decoding Complexity for Two-User MIMO-MAC

In this paper, Space-Time Block Codes (STBCs) with reduced Sphere Decoding Complexity (SDC) are constructed for two-user Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) fading multiple access channels. In this set-up, both the users employ identical STBCs and the destination performs sphere decoding for the symbols of the two users. First, we identify the positions of the zeros in the $\textbf{R}$ matrix arising out of the Q-R decomposition of the lattice generator such that (i) the worst case SDC (WSDC) and (ii) the average SDC (ASDC) are reduced. Then, a set of necessary and sufficient conditions on the lattice generator is provided such that the $\textbf{R}$ matrix has zeros at the identified positions. Subsequently, explicit constructions of STBCs which results in the reduced ASDC are presented. The rate (in complex symbols per channel use) of the proposed designs is at most $2/N_{t}$ where $N_{t}$ denotes the number of transmit antennas for each user. We also show that the class of STBCs from complex orthogonal designs (other than the Alamouti design) reduce the WSDC but not the ASDC.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2009

Trellis Coded Modulation for Two-User Unequal-Rate Gaussian MAC

In this paper, code pairs based on trellis coded modulation are proposed over PSK signal sets for a two-user Gaussian multiple access channel. In order to provide unique decodability property to the receiver and to maximally enlarge the constellation constrained (CC) capacity region, a relative angle of rotation is introduced between the signal sets. Subsequently, the structure of the \textit{sum alphabet} of two PSK signal sets is exploited to prove that Ungerboeck labelling on the trellis of each user maximizes the guaranteed minimum squared Euclidean distance, $d^{2}_{g, min}$ in the \textit{sum trellis}. Hence, such a labelling scheme can be used systematically to construct trellis code pairs for a two-user GMAC to approach \emph{any rate pair} within the capacity region.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2009

High-Rate, Distributed Training-Embedded Complex Orthogonal Designs for Relay Networks

Distributed Space-Time Block Codes (DSTBCs) from Complex Orthogonal Designs (CODs) (both square and non-square CODs other than the Alamouti design) are known to lose their single-symbol ML decodable (SSD) property when used in two-hop wireless relay networks using amplify and forward protocol. For such a network, in this paper, a new class of high rate, training-embedded (TE) SSD DSTBCs are constructed from TE-CODs. The proposed codes include the training symbols in the structure of the code which is shown to be the key point to obtain high rate as well as the SSD property. TE-CODs are shown to offer full-diversity for arbitrary complex constellations. Non-square TE-CODs are shown to provide higher rates (in symbols per channel use) compared to the known SSD DSTBCs for relay networks with number of relays less than $10.$

cs.IT↗