Jun 25, 2024
IEEE ICC 2024 Best Paper Award
The joint DFG project of TU Dresden and TU Braunschweig won the IEEE ICC 2024 Best Paper Award.
Dipl.-Ing. Dennis Pohle, Research Associate at the Chair of Measurement and Sensor System Technique, developed experiments to investigate optical fibers, which are crucial as a backbone for the further development of the Internet, whereby the novel methods can increase the security of the data.
Chair of Measurement and Sensor System Technique at the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering Prof. Jürgen Czarske led the group and the project and was the initiator of the topic.
The IEEE International Conference on Communications is the largest and most important international conference of the IEEE Communications Society. It takes place once a year at various locations around the world. This year, 15 papers were selected for a Best Paper Award. Each regular symposium was honored with a Best Paper Award and three of the 13 SAC tracks received an award. This year 2364 papers were submitted.
The paper deals with the fundamental limits of secure key generation using communication over a fiber optic channel. The optical fiber is used classically and no quantum effects, such as entanglement, are exploited. Nevertheless, the generated key is also secure against attacks from quantum computers. The paper is an interdisciplinary collaboration between communications engineering (TU Braunschweig) and metrology (TU Dresden). The measurement technology was able to measure so-called multi-mode fiber channels in the experiment. This measurement data provides the basis for the calculation of the secure key rate by communications engineering. It is particularly noteworthy that the attacker, who draws energy directly from the optical fiber, does not receive sufficient information to calculate the key.
The method represents an efficient and scalable alternative to quantum key distribution. For example, it allows keys to be generated securely via the fiber optic connections used to connect base stations in mobile communications. However, very long optical cable connections can also be used to generate secure keys without the need for a quantum repeater. Banks with branches in different countries or government institutions in different countries can generate secure keys in this way, which are then used for confidential and authenticated communication.
TEXT: Eduard Jorswieck, Carolin Steinert-Zettier
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Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Jürgen Czarske
Lehrstuhlinhaber
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