A scalable key‐management scheme with minimizing key storage for secure group communications

Recently, many group communication services have become the focus for future developments in the Internet and wireless network applications, such as video‐conferencing, collaborative work, networking games or online videos. In particular, these applications require data delivery from one sender to a large number of authorized receivers. Therefore, secure multicast communication will become an important networking issue in the future. Using a common encryption key only known by authorized members to encrypt transmitted data is a practical approach. But, whenever a group member joins or leaves the group, the common encryption key must be updated to ensure both past and future secrecy. As a result, minimizing key update communication cost and the key storage requirement of a group controller is a critical issue in a scalable and dynamically changing large group. A new key‐management scheme is proposed to reduce the key storage requirement of a group controller to a constant size, which is far better than that of the previously proposed schemes, while retaining the same key update communication cost. In addition, the correlation between the key storage requirement of each group member and key update communication cost are also presented. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bit-stream allocation methods for scalable video coding supporting wireless communications

The demand for video access services through wireless networks, as important parts of larger heterogeneous networks, is constantly increasing. To cope with this demand, flexible compression technology to enable optimum coding performance, especially at low bit-rates, is required. In this context, scalable video coding emerges as the most promising technology. A critical problem in wavelet-based scalable video coding is bit-stream allocation at any bit-rate and in particular when low bit-rates are targeted. In this paper two methods for bit-stream allocation based on the concept of fractional bit-planes are reported. The first method assumes that minimum rate-distortion (R–D) slope of the same fractional bit-plane within the same bit-plane across different subbands is higher than or equal to the maximum R–D slope of the next fractional bit-plane. This method is characterised by a very low complexity since no distortion evaluation is required. Contrasting this approach, in the second method the distortion caused by quantisation of the wavelet coefficients is considered. Here, a simple yet effective statistical distortion model that is used for estimation of R–D slopes for each fractional bit-plane is derived. Three different strategies are derived from this method. In the first one it is assumed that the used wavelet is nearly orthogonal, i.e. the distortion in the transform domain is treated as being equivalent to the distortion in the signal domain. To reduce the error caused by direct distortion evaluation in the wavelet domain, the weighting factors are applied to the used statistical distortion model in the second strategy. In the last strategy, the derived statistical model is used during the bit-plane encoding to determine optimal position of the fractional bit-plane corresponding to refinement information in the compressed bit-stream. Results of selected experiments measuring peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) of decoded video at various bit-rates are reported. Additionally, the PSNR of decoded video at various bit-rates is measured for two specific cases: when the methods for bit-stream allocation are used to assign quality layers in the compressed bit-stream, and when quality layers are not assigned.     

An efficient optimisation scheme for scalable surveillance centric video communications

State-of-the-art coders have been optimised over years according to the needs of the broadcasting industry. There are however key applications of coding technology whose challenges and requirements substantially differ from broadcasting. One of these key applications is surveillance. In this paper an efficient approach for surveillance centric joint source and channel coding is proposed. Contrasting conventional coders, the proposed system has been developed according to the requirements of surveillance application scenarios. It aims at achieving bit-rate optimisation and adaptation of surveillance videos for storing and transmission purposes. In the proposed approach the encoder communicates with a video content analysis (VCA) module that detects events of interests in video captured by CCTV. Bit-rate optimisation and adaptation is achieved by exploiting the scalability properties of the employed codec. Temporal segments containing events relevant to surveillance application are encoded using high spatio-temporal resolution and quality while the portions irrelevant from the surveillance standpoint are encoded at low spatio-temporal resolution and/or quality. Furthermore, the approach jointly optimises the bit allocation between the wavelet-based scalable video coder and forward error correction codes. The forward error correction code is based on the product code constituting of LDPC codes and turbo codes. Turbo codes show good performance at high error rates region but LDPC outperforms turbo codes at low error rates. Therefore, the concatenation of LDPC and TC enhances the performance at both low and high signal-to-noise (SNR) ratios. The proposed approach minimises the distortion of reconstructed video, subject to constraint on the overall transmission bit-rate budget. Experimental results clearly demonstrate the efficiency and suitability of the proposed approach in surveillance applications.     

SECURE GROUP COMMUNICATIONS FOR LARGE DYNAMIC MULTICAST GROUP

As the major problem in multicast security, the group key management has been the focus of research. But few results are satisfactory. In this paper, the problems of group key management and access control for large dynamic multicast group have been researched and a solution based on SubGroup Secure Controllers (SGSCs) is presented, which selves many problems in IOLUS system and WGL scheme.     

Synchronization techniques for underwater acoustic communications

Underwater acoustic channel is a challenging medium for communication due to the presence of significant multipath, high noise, frequency-dependent propagation loss, and high and non-uniform Doppler spread. Doppler shift is non-negligible in underwater communication due to the low velocity of underwater signals. Synchronization and Doppler estimation are important requirements for achieving good performance in this channel. Synchronization algorithms that give good performance in radio communication do not work well in underwater communication. Hence, this area has received a lot of attention from researchers. This paper surveys important works in the area. The techniques proposed in the literature for frame synchronization, frequency and phase synchronization, and timing synchronization in single carrier communications are reviewed here. The synchronization techniques proposed for OFDM, MIMO OFDM, and spread spectrum communication are also surveyed. Doppler estimation methods proposed in the literature are also reviewed. It is found that most of the recent works in underwater acoustic communication focus on OFDM synchronization. Deep learning-based methods proposed in the literature are also reviewed. Key open problems and areas that require future research attention in the field of synchronization and Doppler estimation in underwater communications are highlighted in this paper. The area needing most attention of underwater communication researchers was found to be MIMO OFDM due to the difficulty in synchronization in such systems while used in underwater communication. Reducing the computational complexity of the algorithms used is also important for future work. Schemes that work with Doppler due to relative velocity over 10 m/s also need to be developed.     

Secure key agreement for group communications

A secure key agreement protocol for group communications is proposed in this paper, which ensures the authenticity of group members and the privacy of group messages, and provides the properties of perfect forward and backward privacy. In a group session, the common key is collaboratively established by all participants, hence the overhead of key agreement is balanced among group members. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Protocol design for scalable and reliable group rekeying

We present the design and specification of a protocol for scalable and reliable group rekeying together with performance evaluation results. The protocol is based upon the use of key trees for secure groups and periodic batch rekeying. At the beginning of each rekey interval, the key server sends a rekey message to all users consisting of encrypted new keys (encryptions, in short) carried in a sequence of packets. We present a scheme for identifying keys, encryptions, and users, and a key assignment algorithm that ensures that the encryptions needed by a user are in the same packet. Our protocol provides reliable delivery of new keys to all users eventually. It also attempts to deliver new keys to all users with a high probability by the end of the rekey interval. For each rekey message, the protocol runs in two steps: a multicast step followed by a unicast step. Proactive forward error correction (FEC) multicast is used to reduce delivery latency. Our experiments show that a small FEC block size can be used to reduce encoding time at the server without increasing server bandwidth overhead. Early transition to unicast, after at most two multicast rounds, further reduces the worst-case delivery latency as well as user bandwidth requirement. The key server adaptively adjusts the proactivity factor based upon past feedback information; our experiments show that the number of NACKs after a multicast round can be effectively controlled around a target number. Throughout the protocol design, we strive to minimize processing and bandwidth requirements for both the key server and users.     

Some cryptographic techniques for machine-to-machine data communications

Some of the threats to the integrity of multiuser teleprocessing systems and to the data they contain can be countered by the use of cryptography. Stream-generator ciphers are not ideally suited for such an application, thus the use of block ciphers, which have the beneficial property of a strong nonlinear intersymbol dependence, is suggested. This property provides the means for automatic error detection for verifying the authenticity of terminal operators, and for ensuring messase integrity. An experimental demonstration system has been constructed to illustrate protection features that can be provided for real applications.     

A comparison of load balancing techniques for scalable Web servers

Scalable Web servers can be built using a network of workstations where server capacity can be extended by adding new workstations as the workload increases. The topic of our article is a comparison of different method to do load-balancing of HTTP traffic for scalable Web servers. We present a classification framework the different load-balancing methods and compare their performance. In addition, we evaluate in detail one class of methods using a prototype implementation with instruction-level analysis of processing overhead. The comparison is based on a trace driven simulation of traces from a large ISP (Internet Service Provider) in Norway. The simulation model is used to analyze different load-balancing schemes based on redirection of request in the network and redirection in the mapping between a canonical name (CNAME) and IP address. The latter is vulnerable to spatial and temporal locality, although for the set of traces used, the impact of locality is limited. The best performance is obtained with redirection in the network     

Spread spectrum techniques for indoor wireless IR communications

Multipath dispersion and fluorescent light interference are two major problems in indoor wireless infrared communications systems. Multipath dispersion introduces intersymbol interference at data rates above 10 Mb/s, while fluorescent light induces severe narrowband interference to baseband modulation schemes commonly used such as OOK and PPM. This article reviews the research into the application of direct sequence spread spectrum techniques to ameliorate these key channel impairments without having to resort to complex signal Processing techniques. The inherent properties of a spreading sequence are exploited in order to combat the ISI and narrowband interference. In addition, to reducing the impact of these impairments, the DSSS modulation schemes have strived to be bandwidth-efficient and simple to implement. Three main DSSS waveform techniques have been developed and investigated. These are sequence inverse keying, complementary sequence inverse keying, and M-ary biorthogonal keying (MBOK). The operations of the three systems are explained; their performances were evaluated through simulations and experiments for a number of system parameters, including spreading sequence type and length. By comparison with OOK, our results show that SIK, CSIK, and MBOK are effective against multipath dispersion and fluorescent light interference because the penalties incurred on the DSSS schemes are between 0-7 dB, while the penalty on OOK in the same environment is more than 17 dB. The DSSS solution for IR wireless transmission demonstrates that a transmission waveform can be designed to remove the key channel impairments in a wireless IR system.     

Modem techniques in satellite communications

Since the mid 1980s, research and development in satellite modem techniques has been very active and has yielded promising results. In the article the author presents a summary of the current status of work in this area, and discusses the directions this work is taking     

Protocol design for mobile radio group communications oversatellite

A protocol design for a mobile radio service supporting half-duplex push-to-talk voice communications over mobile satellite systems is presented. The service enables a closed group of mobile radio users to communicate among themselves, so that a transmission from any user is received by all. A key issue is the efficient utilization of satellite channels. Demand-assignment multiple access (DAMA) is employed to allocate channels only to those user groups in active sessions of conversations. Owing to the unique characteristics of the half-duplex point-to-multipoint group communications, a new DAMA protocol is proposed for this service. Within a channel assigned to a user group, access contentions exacerbated by very long round-trip delay can occur. A signaling protocol is devised to arbitrate access contentions so as to improve the utilization of the assigned channel. The proposed access control protocol offers 65% or 18% improvement in throughput capacity compared to manual carrier-sensed access without and with collision detection, respectively     

Adaptive compensation techniques for communications systems with Tomlinson-Harashima precoding

To improve compensation to channel or interference changes, we propose adapting an auxiliary feedback filter (FBF) in the receiver of systems which use Tomlinson-Harashima (1971, 1972) precoding. We show how the auxiliary FBF can be adapted in conjunction with the receiver feedforward filter (FFF). Simulations demonstrate the performance advantage of our auxiliary FBF technique relative to FFF updating alone, and how the FFF combines interference suppression with despreading in wideband applications. Error propagation can be effectively avoided by using the auxiliary FBF values to decide when to update the precoder, while transient increases in mean-squared error are avoided by using the FBF values in the update equation.