Encryption key distribution via chaos synchronization

Abstract

We present a novel encryption scheme, wherein an encryption key is generated by two distant complex nonlinear units, forced into synchronization by a chaotic driver. The concept is sufficiently generic to be implemented on either photonic, optoelectronic or electronic platforms. The method for generating the key bitstream from the chaotic signals is reconfigurable. Although derived from a deterministic process, the obtained bit series fulfill the randomness conditions as defined by the National Institute of Standards test suite. We demonstrate the feasibility of our concept on an electronic delay oscillator circuit and test the robustness against attacks using a state-of-the-art system identification method.

Generating randomness: making the most out of disordering a false order into a real one

“…A real-time hardware implementation of a fast physical RNG with a photonic integrated circuit and a field programmable gate array electronic board was presented [14]. An encryption key generated by two distant complex nonlinear units, forced into synchronization by a chaotic driver was also described [15]. The latter can be implemented on photonic, optoelectronic or electronic platforms, with reconfigurable key bitstream generation from chaotic signals.…”

“…The verification procedure represents a black-box test of randomness [2, 56]. The limitation that any two photons must exchange signals at subluminal speeds was not enforced in the demonstrations of randomness generation based on Bell inequalities [4, 15]. An experiment was thus conducted with two photons in an entangled state such that their properties were strongly correlated.…”

Physical layer security for IEEE 802.15.7 visible light communication: chaos‐based approach

“…In the last decade, chaos theory has attracted a lot of interests in different research areas, especially in cryptography. Applications in this field include key negotiation protocols over public channels in a variety of forms [21]. As discussed in Section 2, the possibility of self‐synchronisation of chaotic oscillations is the driving force for the ever‐increasing applications of chaos in cryptography.…”

Polarization chaos and random bit generation in nonlinear fiber optics induced by a time-delayed counter-propagating feedback loop

“…Nowadays, chaotic dynamics in optical systems find numerous applications, among which the most emblematic are cryptographic secure communications [1][2][3], reservoir computing [4,5] or random bit generation [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Similarly to other physical areas, the common feature of those systems is that the route to chaos is achieved by means of a time-delayed feedback.…”