Capacity analysis of a discrete-time bufferless timing channel

Abstract

This paper investigates the capacity of a discrete-time channel in which information is conveyed by the timing of consecutive packets passing through a queue with independent and identically distributed service times. Such timing channels are commonly studied under the assumption of a work-conserving queue. In contrast, this paper studies the case of a discrete-time bufferless queue that drops arriving packets while a packet is in service. Under this bufferless model, the paper provides upper bounds on the capacity of timing channels and establishes capacity for the case of bufferless M/M/1 queue.