Secret Key Generation for a Pairwise Independent Network Model

Abstract— We investigate secret key generation for a “pairwise independent network” model in which every pair of terminals observes correlated sources which are independent of sources observed by all other pairs of terminals. The terminals are then allowed to communicate interactively in multiple rounds over a public noiseless channel of unlimited capacity, with all such communication being observed by all the terminals. The objective is to generate a secret key shared by a given subset of terminals at the largest rate possible. All the terminals cooperate in generating the secret key, with secrecy being required from an eavesdropper which has access to the public interterminal communication. We provide a (singleletter) formula for the secrecy capacity for this model, and show a natural connection between the problem of secret key generation and the combinatorial problem of maximal packing of Steiner trees in an associated multigraph. In particular, we show that the maximum numbe...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Sirin Nitinawarat, Chunxuan Ye, Alexander Barg, Prakash Narayan, Alex Reznik
• Keywords: CORR 2010, Education, Pairwise Independent Network, Secret Key Generation, Secret Keys