Authentication Against a Myopic Adversary

Abstract: We consider keyless authentication for point-to-point communication in the presence of a myopic adversary. In particular, the adversary has access to a non-causal noisy version of the transmission and may use this knowledge to choose the channel state of an arbitrarily-varying channel between legitimate users; the receiver is successful if it either decodes to the correct message or correctly detects adversarial interference. We show that a channel condition called U-overwritability, which allows the adversary to make its false message appear legitimate and untampered with, is a sufficient condition for zero authentication capacity. We present a useful way to compare adversarial channels, and show that once an AVC becomes U-overwritable, it remains U-overwritable for all "less myopic" adversaries. Finally, we show that stochastic encoders are necessary for positive authentication capacity in some cases, and examine in detail a binary adversarial channel that illustrates this necessity. Namely, for this binary channel, we show that when the adversarial channel is degraded with respect to the main channel between users, the no-adversary capacity of the underlying channel is achievable with a deterministic encoder. Otherwise, provided the channel to the adversary is not perfect, a stochastic encoder is necessary for positive authentication capacity; if such an encoder is allowed, the no-adversary capacity is again achievable.