Providing Secrecy With Structured Codes: Two-User Gaussian Channels

Recent results have shown that structured codes can be used to construct good channel codes, source codes, and physical layer network codes for Gaussian channels. For Gaussian channels with secrecy constraints, however, efforts to date rely on Gaussian random codes. In this paper, we advocate that structure in random code generation is useful for providing secrecy as well. In particular, a Gaussian wiretap channel in the presence of a cooperative jammer is studied. Previously, the achievable secrecy rate for this channel was derived using Gaussian signaling, which saturated at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), owing to the fact that the cooperative jammer simultaneously helps by interfering with the eavesdropper, and hurts by interfering with the intended receiver. In this paper, a new achievable rate is derived through imposing a lattice structure on the signals transmitted by both the source and the cooperative jammer, which are aligned at the eavesdropper but remain separable at the intended receiver. We prove that the achieved secrecy rate does not saturate at high SNR for all values of channel gains except when the channel is degraded.