Wireless channel-based ciphering key generation: effect of aging and treatment

International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE)
Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2024, pp. 451∼456
ISSN: 2088-8708, DOI: 10.11591/ijece.v14i1.pp451-456 ❒ 451
Wireless channel-based ciphering key generation: effect of
aging and treatment
Aqiel Almamori1
, Mohammed Adil Abbas2
1Electronics and Communication Department, Collage of Engineering, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
2Continuing Education Center, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
Article Info
Article history:
Received Jun 17, 2023
Revised Jul 8, 2023
Accepted Jul 17, 2023
Keywords:
Channel aging
Ciphering
Correlation
Encryption
Key generation
Spectral efficiency
ABSTRACT
Key generation for data cryptography is vital in wireless communications secu-
rity. This key must be generated in a random way so that can not be regenerated
by a third party other than the intended receiver. The random nature of the
wireless channel is utilized to generate the encryption key. However, the ran-
domness of wireless channels deteriorated over time due to channel aging which
casing security threats, particularly for spatially correlated channels. In this pa-
per, the effect of channel aging on the ciphering key generations is addressed.
A proposed method to randomize the encryption key each coherence time is de-
veloped which decreases the correlation between keys generated at consecutive
coherence times. When compared to the conventional method, the randomness
improvement is significant at each time interval. The simulation results show
that the proposed method improves the randomness of the encrypting keys.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license.
Corresponding Author:
Mohammed Adil Abbas
Continuing Education Center, University of Baghdad
Baghdad, Iraq
Email: engimoh87@dcec.uobaghdad.edu.iq
1. INTRODUCTION
Wireless communication has become a mandatory portion of our everyday life. However, this portion
requires gigantic efforts to have the wireless transmission secured. This issue has become significant after the
ever-increasing amount of data transmitted, wirelessly [1]–[3]. Since electromagnetic waves can propagate
anywhere, data transmission is fundamentally fraught with danger. The security and confidentiality of the
transmitted information have therefore consumed a substantial amount of researchers’ time and efforts. In
order to ensure the confidentiality of transmissions, general transmission devices either use symmetric-key
encryption or asymmetric-key encryption. However, neither of these methods is recommended due to the fact
that asymmetric-key encryption necessitates a significant amount of complex processing power, and the second
method necessitates a very secure link to transfer the unique encryption key, which is a crucial concern. Because
sending sensitive information becomes impossible once the secret key is revealed [4], [5]. An alternative
assumption is a keyless or physical layer security scheme was proposed. However, the keyless scheme limits
the resources of wireless transmission. Furthermore, users of public networks face severe restrictions and costly
additional expenses [6]–[10].
The concept of key generation was initially thought of and investigated theoretically in [11], [12]. Key
generation is a crucial component of wireless transmission security. The process of generating a key entails
the creation and distribution of an encryption code that can be used to secure the data at both ends of the
transmission. Using a single code to encrypt the entire transmission is hazardous, however, because if the code
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452 ❒ ISSN: 2088-8708
is compromised, the entire transmission will be compromised [13], [14].
The improvement in the security of wireless networks is obtained by attaining information-theoretic
secrecy, which provides network security with greater wireless adaptability. In contrast to conventional encryp-
tion key generation methods, a recent security technique exploits the randomness of the wireless channel. This
method of key generation greatly complicates attempts to reveal the transmission by a third party (adversaries)
other than the transmitter and receiver [15]–[17].
Hence, the randomness in wireless channels can be harvested to generate uncorrelated secret codes
to guarantee transmission security [18]. This assumption does not always hold true. Specifically in a static
environment, the wireless channel does not vary enough, resulting in a low level of introduced randomness
in the following time interval. A practical example of this environment is the indoor internet of things (IoT).
Correlated successive channels result in the generation of correlated secret codes which endanger transmission
confidentiality. Due to the high correlation between encryption keys, compromising one key could be used to
easily decrypt the next [18], [19].
Nevertheless, recent work on encryption key generation in the static environment has attracted con-
siderable interest. The capacity of the encryption key was determined and addressed the parameters that affect
the capacity [20]–[22]. However, efforts are directed toward reaping the advantages of randomness through the
application of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) [23]–[25]. The current efforts concentrate on reducing
transmission losses and restricting the information leakage to the eavesdroppers in order to maximize link effi-
ciency. So far as we can tell, though, there appears to be little effort to draw attention to the consequences of
utilizing encryption keys correlated to the generated encryption keys at consecutive coherence times.
The contribution of this work addresses the impact of channel aging on the network security level to
propose an alternative solution to overcome the issue of correlated successive encryption keys. This can be
clearly seen in the low randomness environment or in other words, in the static environment when the user
is sitting or moving lowly. Furthermore, the results of this paper show the impact of the proposed scheme
and the speed of the moving user in enhancing network security. This study focuses on the design of a robust
encryption key generation that avoids the correlation of consecutive encryption keys. The remainder of this
paper is organized as follows, section 2 describes the system model of this study. The problem is brought up
and formulated in section 3. The results are shown and discussed in section 4. Finally, section 5 concludes this
study.
2. SYSTEM MODEL
In this paper, the transmitter base station (BS) or access point (AP) ) is equipped with M transmit
antennas and serves multiple users (total number of users is K) each user is equipped with a single antenna,
as shown in Figure 1. Symmetric key encryption is considered that is used to encrypt the data transmission
between the transmitter and each individual user, uk.
Figure 1. System model
Int J Elec & Comp Eng, Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2024: 451-456

Int J Elec & Comp Eng ISSN: 2088-8708 ❒ 453
The link between each single user and the transmitter is secured with a unique secret code. The
encryption key for each link is derived from the randomness of its acquired channel state information (CSI).
The CSI of all users is gathered by the transmitter. For each coherent time of transmission, the transmitter
creates a new encryption key for each user and conveys it via a confidential channel to all of the active users.
However, when uk is in a static or slowly moving environment, the channel aging of uk may be low, and the
subsequent coherent time may be correlated. In this way, the transmission would operate with correlated secret
codes, and the disclosure of a single transmission’s encryption key would have adverse consequences [26].
Thus, breaking a single transmission’s encryption key would be used by adversaries employing brute-force
attacks to break the next hop’s secret code since they are highly correlated, breaking a single hop’s secret code
is a weakness that could cause a threat. As well, spatially correlated adversaries will have time to brute force
attack.
3. PROBLEM FORMULATION
This paper focuses on capturing the impact of the user in the slow-moving or static environment at the
generated encryption key from the randomness of the wireless channel. The process of encryption key gener-
ation involves three main steps: probing, quantization, information reconciliation, and privacy amplification.
The channel is measured in the first step and converted into binary in the second. The error correction and
secrecy evaluation are done in the last two steps. The comprehensive explanation of each of these stages is de-
tailed in [15]. However, the channel between the transmitter and uk is given in (1) according to the assumptions
in [17].
h[n] = αh[n − 1] + e[n] (1)
where h[n − 1] represents the channel vector for the prior time slots while the effect of channel aging is
represented by the error vector e[n]. The temporal correlation parameter is given by α = J0(2πfDTs). Where
J0() is the zeroth-order Bessel function of the first kind. Ts, and fD are the channel sampling duration and the
maximum Doppler shift, respectively. The value of the Doppler shift is given by (2):
fD =
vfc
c
(2)
where v is the moving velocity of the user uk, c is the speed of light, and fc refers to the carrier frequency.
[17].
For the successive time slots, the successive channel is correlated which leads to generating a cor-
related encryption key. The key to mitigating and improving the quality of encryption keys is to introduce
artificial randomness. The introduced randomness is added to the acquired channel during the process of gen-
eration of the encryption key. For simplicity, the permutations for the required channel vector can be used to
generate uncorrelated successive encryption keys. After permutating the channel vector a decimal-to-binary
conversion has to be done.
h01 = dec2bin(h) (3)
where the vector h01 is binary vector of the length n bit. For a given vector h01 of length n it is simply to
generate a matrix with the dimensions P = n! × n, every single row in matrix P has the same length as v but
with different permutations. The transmitter and receiver are able to use any permutated row vector according
to a pre-decided algorithm.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This section shows the simulation results that shows our proposal. The simulations of results were
performed using MATLAB software. All generated simulations were made by averaging out 1,000 trails.
In Figure 2, the correlation of the successive coherent encryption keys for the two schemes was ana-
lyzed and compared. For the conventional scheme, highly correlated encryption keys result from the correlation
between successive time slots. The correlation between the encryption keys decreases as a result of the effects
of aging, However, the correlation between the first six encryption keys is considerably high. In contrast to
the conventional approach, the proposed approach has shown considerable improvements. Hence, comparing
Wireless channel-based ciphering key generation: effect of aging and treatment (Aqiel Almamori)

454 ❒ ISSN: 2088-8708
the first and second-time slots generated keys, the correlation drops from 6.3799 in the conventional scheme to
0.0013 in the proposed scheme. The results reveal that the generated keys are uncorrelated with the encryption
keys that come from the second time slot. Hence, the impact of the permutation of the received channel vector
can be clearly captured. Figure 3, demonstrates the influence of user speed on the correlation between two suc-
cessive encryption keys that come from successive time slots. It can be clearly seen that for the slow-moving
user or the static user, the channel is highly correlated due to the low-level impact of channel aging. Hence, the
generated encryption keys from the highly correlated channel vectors are correlated accordingly. Contrarily,
the correlation level drops for the fast-moving user. Accordingly, the key will be more vulnerable due to this
correlation and a third party can get an advantage.
Eventually, the eavesdropper has to find the permutation index which changes in coordination between
transmitter and receiver before breaking the encryption which requires a huge computation power and time.
The permutation index sharing between transmitter and receiver gives the key high randomness in which high
computational power is needed to find it by the eavesdropper.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
-1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Conventional
Proposed
Figure 2. A comparison of the correlation between the successive time slots
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Figure 3. The correlation between the successive time slot versus the speed of the user
5. CONCLUSION
Security of transmitted data is important in wireless communications. Consequently, data encryption
with the proper key is necessary. The encryption key has to be random and challenging to revoke its regenerate
by a third party. The randomness of the wireless channel has been utilized to generate the encryption key. The
correlation between the generated keys at consecutive intervals of coherence times is high, particularly in slow-
moving mobile phones. This correlation is a weakness in network security and causes a threat. A proposed

Int J Elec & Comp Eng ISSN: 2088-8708 ❒ 455
key generation method to overcome this threat is adding new randomization of binary key bits based on the
bits permutations. This method highly improves the randomness and makes key regeneration by eavesdropper
harder. The proposed method has improved the performance of the key.
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BIOGRAPHIES OF AUTHORS
Aqiel Almamori received the B.Sc. degree in electronics and communications engineer-
ing and the M.Sc. degree in communications engineering from Nahrain University in Baghdad, Iraq
in 1999, 2002, respectively. He received a Ph.D. in telecommunications and networking from the
University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA, in 2018. In 2005–2013, he joined Motorola Solutions
as a radio frequency engineer. He has been working as a lecturer in the Electronics and Communi-
cation Department, College of Engineering, University of Baghdad. He can be contacted at email:
a.eced@coeng.uobaghdad.edu.iq.
Mohammed Adil Abbas received the B.Sc. degree from the Department of Electronics
and Communications, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq, in 2009, and the M.S. degree from
the Department of Information and Communications, Pukyong National University, Busan, South
Korea, in 2017. He is currently a lecturer with the Development and Continuing Education Center,
University of Baghdad. He can be contacted at email: engimoh87@dcec.uobaghdad.edu.iq.

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