CLIMEX: A Wireless Physical Layer Security Protocol Based on Clocked Impulse Exchanges
This addresses the need for secure wireless communication by leveraging physical layer security, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing concepts with specific parameter-based enhancements.
The paper tackles the problem of establishing common secrecy between two users using physical parameters like clock frequencies, phases, and distance, proposing a protocol that can derive 38 bits of common secrecy per run in testbed settings.
A novel method and protocol establishing common secrecy based on physical parameters between two users is proposed. The four physical parameters of users are their clock frequencies, their relative clock phases and the distance between them. The protocol proposed between two users is backed by theoretical model for the measurements. Further, estimators are proposed to estimate secret physical parameters. Physically exchanged parameters are shown to be secure by virtue of their non-observability to adversaries. Under a simplified analysis based on a testbed settings, it is shown that 38 bits of common secrecy can be derived for one run of the proposed protocol among users. The method proposed is also robust against various kinds of active timing attacks and active impersonating adversaries.