Low-complexity wire-tap codes with security and error-correction guarantees

Abstract

New code constructions are proposed for the wiretap channel with security and error-correction guarantees. For the case of error-free main channels, two families of codes are constructed with optimal encoding and decoding complexities for their wire-tap security. For the case of main channels with errors, two concatenation types are studied for the wire-tap and error-correcting codes. For each of these concatenated schemes, code families are constructed that give optimal cooperation between the wire-tap and error-correction properties. The motivation to study low-complexity wire-tap codes with security and error-correction guarantees comes from data storage applications. Due to imperfect physical erasure processes, important secret information needs to be protected from adversarial access to residual, post erasure, information, and at the same time be protected from errors when read by the legitimate device user.