LDPC codes for the Gaussian wiretap channel

Abstract

A coding scheme for the Gaussian wiretap channel based on low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes is presented. The messages are transmitted over punctured bits to hide data from eavesdroppers. It is shown by means of density evolution that the BER of an eavesdropper, who operates below the code's SNR threshold and has the ability to use a bitwise MAP decoder, increases to 0.5 within a few dB. It is shown how asymptotically optimized LDPC codes can be designed with differential evolution where the goal is to achieve high reliability between friendly parties and security against a passive eavesdropper while keeping the security gap as small as possible. The proposed coding scheme is also efficiently encodable in almost linear time.