Tag Generation Using Chaotic Sequences for Physical-Layer Authentication

Abstract

We consider in this work a physical layer authentication method in which a message authentication code, referred to as a tag, is transmitted along with the data message to provide a robust authentication method. This work diverges from previous work in the area when it comes to the tag generation method. While the previous works use methods based on cryptographic hash functions, our system employs unidimensional chaotic maps to generate these tags. Due to the loss of information about the initial condition of chaotic maps, we show that they are strong candidates for the tag generation process. We employ an information-theoretic approach to show that chaotic tags provide a positive lower bound on the unconditional security of the system even in a noiseless environment. To the best of our knowledge this is the first work where unconditional security is obtained independently of the noise power. Additionally, we calculate the probability of success for two active attacks to the authentication system: impersonation, substitution.