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Secure Semantic Communication With Homomorphic Encryption

Rui Meng, Dayu Fan, Haixiao Gao, Yifan Yuan, Bizhu Wang, Xiaodong Xu, Mengying Sun, Chen Dong, Xiaofeng Tao, Ping Zhang, Dusit Niyato

TL;DR

This paper explores the feasibility of applying homomorphic encryption (HE) to SemCom and proposes the HE-joint source-channel coding (HE-JSCC) scheme, where the traditional JSCC model architecture is modified to support HE operations.

Abstract

In recent years, Semantic Communication (SemCom), which aims to achieve efficient and reliable transmission of meaning between agents, has garnered significant attention from both academia and industry. To ensure the security of communication systems, encryption techniques are employed to safeguard confidentiality and integrity. However, existing encryption schemes encounter obstacles when applied to SemCom. To address this issue, this paper explores the feasibility of applying homomorphic encryption (HE) to SemCom. Initially, we review the encryption algorithms utilized in mobile communication systems and analyze the challenges associated with their application to SemCom. Subsequently, we overview HE techniques and employ scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) to demonstrate that the extractable semantic information can be preserved in homomorphic encrypted ciphertext. Based on this finding, we further propose the HE-joint source-channel coding (HE-JSCC) scheme, where the traditional JSCC model architecture is modified to support HE operations. Moreover, we present the simulation results for image classification and image generation tasks. Furthermore, we provide potential future research directions for homomorphic encrypted SemCom.

Secure Semantic Communication With Homomorphic Encryption

TL;DR

This paper explores the feasibility of applying homomorphic encryption (HE) to SemCom and proposes the HE-joint source-channel coding (HE-JSCC) scheme, where the traditional JSCC model architecture is modified to support HE operations.

Abstract

In recent years, Semantic Communication (SemCom), which aims to achieve efficient and reliable transmission of meaning between agents, has garnered significant attention from both academia and industry. To ensure the security of communication systems, encryption techniques are employed to safeguard confidentiality and integrity. However, existing encryption schemes encounter obstacles when applied to SemCom. To address this issue, this paper explores the feasibility of applying homomorphic encryption (HE) to SemCom. Initially, we review the encryption algorithms utilized in mobile communication systems and analyze the challenges associated with their application to SemCom. Subsequently, we overview HE techniques and employ scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) to demonstrate that the extractable semantic information can be preserved in homomorphic encrypted ciphertext. Based on this finding, we further propose the HE-joint source-channel coding (HE-JSCC) scheme, where the traditional JSCC model architecture is modified to support HE operations. Moreover, we present the simulation results for image classification and image generation tasks. Furthermore, we provide potential future research directions for homomorphic encrypted SemCom.
Paper Structure (28 sections, 4 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 28 sections, 4 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Overview of Semantic Communication (SemCom) and Encryption Techniques
  3. What is SemCom?
  4. What are Encryption Techniques for Traditional Mobile Communication System?
  5. Cryptography-based Encryption Techniques
  6. Physical Layer Security (PLS) Techniques
  7. What are the Challenges of Encrypting SemCom?
  8. Motivations of Applying Homomorphic Encryption (HE) to Secure SemCom
  9. Overview of HE
  10. What can SemCom Benefit from HE?
  11. Proposed HE-JSCC Scheme for Secure SemCom
  12. The Designed HE-JSCC Model
  13. Steps of The Proposed HE-JSCC Scheme
  14. Simulation Results
  15. Classification Task
  16. ...and 13 more sections

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: A comparison between traditional E2E communication framework and semantic communication (SemCom) framework. Both correspond to the TCP/IP five-layer structure, which includes the application layer, transport layer, network layer, data link layer, and physical layer. (a) Traditional communication employs a separate source and channel coding approach, conducting source coding and encryption at the application layer, and channel coding at the physical layer to reduce the bit error rate. (b) SemCom uses joint source-channel coding (JSCC), where information is encrypted and semantically compressed at the application layer, then combined with channel information for coding at the physical layer.
  • Figure 2: Verification that homomorphic encrypted ciphertext still retains extractable semantic information. Part A shows an example of HE for cloud computing. Part B illustrates the steps of SIFT algorithm (difference-of-Gaussian transforms, scale-space extrema detection, and keypoint localization). Part C illustrates the SIFT detected features of a plaintext image. Part D illustrates the SIFT detected features of a homomorphic encrypted image.
  • Figure 3: The proposed HE-JSCC scheme, where (a) illustrates the modification of the HE-JSCC model, (b) illustrates the offline training stage, and (c) illustrates the online inference stage.
  • Figure 4: The performance of PSNR and SSIM versus different SNRs, where DeepJSCEC tung2023deep is employed as the comparison scheme.