Artificial Error-Based Code Scrambling Scheme for Secure Communications in Wiretap Channels with Channel Reciprocity

In this letter, an artificial message error-based code scrambling scheme is proposed for secure communications in wiretap channels with channel reciprocity. In the proposed scheme, the artificial message bit errors agreed between the legitimate transmitter and receiver are added to the scrambled message bits at the transmitter prior to the channel encoding procedure, through which the artificial errors are generated by using the reciprocal channel between the legitimate transmitter and receiver. Because of the inaccessibility to the channel state information between the legitimate transmitter and receiver, an eavesdropper would fail to compensate for the artificial errors perfectly. Thus, in addition to decoding errors, the residual artificial errors will also be spread over the descrambled message of the eavesdropper by the error spreading effect of code scrambling. Therefore, unlike the conventional code scrambling scheme, the proposed scheme can provide strong message confidentiality for non-degraded eavesdropping channels, e.g., when the eavesdropper experiences no decoding errors. Furthermore, given that the artificial errors are introduced before the channel encoding procedure, the spread residual errors in the descrambled message remain undetected after the decoding procedures of the eavesdropper. Simulation results confirm that the proposed scheme outperforms the conventional scheme and provides strong message confidentiality in wiretap channels.