Secret Key Generation Through a Relay

Abstract: We consider problems of two-user secret key generation through an intermediate relay. Each user observes correlated source sequences and communicates to the relay over rate-limited noiseless links. The relay processes and broadcasts information to the two users over another rate-limited link. The users then generate a common secret key based on their sources and information from the relay. In the untrusted relay setting, the goal is to establish key agreement between the two users at the highest key rate without leaking information about the key to the relay. We characterize inner and outer bounds to the optimal tradeoff between communication and key rates. The inner bound is based on the scheme which involves a combination of binning, network coding, and key aggregation techniques. For the trusted relay setting with a public broadcast link, the optimal communication-key rate tradeoff is provided for a special case where the two sources are available losslessly at the relay. The results can be relevant for cloud-based secret key generation services.