A secret key negotiation scheme for wireless communications over fading channels

Due to the openness and broadcast nature of wireless mediums, wireless communication is always vulnerable to potential security threats such as eavesdropping, since unauthorized receiving is facilitated through wireless channels. This paper proposes a secret key negotiation scheme based on the difference of the packet loss. In a wireless channel, the packet losses at the intended receiver and the eavesdropper are statistically independent due to the independence of the thermal noise and the channel fading. The proposed scheme has exploited this feature in negotiating a secret key between Alice and Bob. Simulation results show that the proposed secret key negotiation scheme can effectively guarantee the security of wireless communications even if Eve is very close to Alice or Bob.