A Model for Adversarial Wiretap Channels and its Applications

Abstract

In the wiretap model of secure communication, Alice is connected to Bob and Eve by two noisy channels. Wyner's insight was that the difference in noise between the two channels can be used to provide perfect secrecy for communication between Alice and Bob, against the eavesdropper Eve. In Wyner's model, the adversary is passive. We consider a coding-theoretic model for wiretap channels with active adversaries who can choose their view of the communication channel and also add adversarial noise to the channel. We give an overview of the security definition and the known results for this model, and discuss its relation to two important cryptographic primitives: secure message transmission and robust secret sharing. In particular, we show that this model unifies the study of wiretap channels and secure message transmission in networks.