On secure multi-channel communication systems

In this paper, we first review a recently proposed framework for secure communications, namely broadcast channel with confidential and public messages (BCCP). We then generalize the framework to secret key enhanced secure communication and derive the rate-equivocation region for such system. The secret key enhanced framework is further applied to a general multichannel communication systems where any one of the channels is subject to wiretapping. Optimal rate confidentiality tradeoff is obtained for a two channel case and the result generalizes naturally to more than two channels. The developed methodology can be extended to a network setting.