Perfect Omniscience, Perfect Secrecy, and Steiner Tree Packing

DOI10.1109/TIT.2010.2081450MaRDI QIDQ5281197zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Sirin Nitinawarat, Prakash Narayan

Publication date 27 July 2017

Published in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1008.1079

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Applications of graph theory (05C90) Authentication, digital signatures and secret sharing (94A62)

Abstract: We consider perfect secret key generation for a ``pairwise independent network model in which every pair of terminals share a random binary string, with the strings shared by distinct terminal pairs being mutually independent. The terminals are then allowed to communicate interactively over a public noiseless channel of unlimited capacity. All the terminals as well as an eavesdropper observe this communication. The objective is to generate a perfect secret key shared by a given set of terminals at the largest rate possible, and concealed from the eavesdropper. First, we show how the notion of perfect omniscience plays a central role in characterizing perfect secret key capacity. Second, a multigraph representation of the underlying secrecy model leads us to an efficient algorithm for perfect secret key generation based on maximal Steiner tree packing. This algorithm attains capacity when all the terminals seek to share a key, and, in general, attains at least half the capacity. Third, when a single ``helper terminal assists the remaining ``user terminals in generating a perfect secret key, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the optimality of the algorithm; also, a ``weak helper is shown to be sufficient for optimality.

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