Efficiency of Rateless Secure Network Coding

Abstract

Network coding allows to increase the throughput as well as the robustness of data transmissions. Regarding robustness, especially rateless network coding was shown to be beneficial. However, the vulnerability of mere network coding against attacks requires introducing security mechanisms, and as known, security implies costs. Within this paper, we evaluate the efficiency of secure network coding schemes applied in a rateless manner. Our results show that secure rateless network coding schemes can still outperform routing. The actual efficiency depends on parameters like generation size, packet size, or network topology. Since conflicting efficiency parameters cannot be fulfilled in equal measure, selection of a secure network coding scheme and its parameters should be done adapted to the actual communication requirements.

Random Network Coding for Secure Packet Transmission in SCADA Networks

“…A rateless application for evaluating the efficiency of network coding for secure transmissions is proposed in [13]. It was shown that the efficiency parameters need to be matched to the communications requirements to outperform routing.…”

“…Encryption encodes the messages such that it is unintelligible to an eavesdropper but authorized users can read it correctly [5]. Network coding was proposed by [12] and it allows robustness in data communications [13]. Instead of sending the source packets, linear combinations of packets are transmitted.…”