An Optimal Symmetric Secret Distribution of Star Networks

Abstract

In this paper, we present a lower bound on secret distribution in star network. Examples of star communication network exist in various systems including sensor networks where there is one base station and several sensors that need to communicate with it. While the previous result had shown the possibility of performing secret distribution in a star network using 2 log n secrets, the lower bound for this problem was unknown. With this motivation, in this paper, we derive a tight bound for the number of secrets required for secret distribution in a star network. We show that as n, the number of satellite nodes in the star network, tends to infinity, it suffices to maintain log n + 1/2 log log n + 1 secrets at the center node. However, log n + 1/2 log log n secrets do not. Even in the absence of the constraint of n approaches infinity, we argue that these bounds are reasonably tight, i.e., there are several examples for finite values of n where [log n+1/2 log log n] secrets do not suffice although [log n + 1/2 log log n + 1] secrets suffice for virtually all cases of practical interest. We also show that our protocol could provide a tradeoff between internal and external attacks and to reduce the number of secrets in acyclic, planar and fully connected bipartite graphs.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2007
Accession Number
ADA471506

Entities

People

  • Bruhadeshwar Bezawada
  • Sandeep S. Kulkarni

Organizations

  • International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Ad Hoc Networks
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Authentication
  • Cellular Networks
  • Communication Networks
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Detectors
  • Graph Theory
  • Information Operations
  • Information Systems
  • Mesh Networks
  • Networks
  • Secure Communications
  • Sensor Networks
  • Star Networks

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Computer Networking
  • Graph Algorithms and Convex Optimization.

Technology Areas

  • Space