Artificial intersymbol interference (ISI) to exploit receiver imperfections for secrecy

Secure communication over a wireless channel in the presence of a passive eavesdropper is considered. We present a method to exploit the eavesdropper´s inherent receiver vulnerabilities to obtain everlasting secrecy. An ephemeral cryptographic key is pre-shared between the transmitter and the legitimate receiver and is utilized to induce intentional intersymbol interference (ISI). The legitimate receiver uses the key to cancel the ISI while the eavesdropper, since it does not have the key, cannot do such. It is shown that although ISI reduces the capacity of the main channel, it can lead to a net gain in secrecy rate. The achievable secrecy rates for different ISI filter settings are evaluated and the proposed method is compared with other information-theoretic security schemes.