Secure network coding

Recent work on network coding renders a new view on multicasting in a network. In the paradigm of network coding, the nodes in a network are allowed to encode the information received from the input links. The usual function of switching at a node is a special case of network coding. The advantage of network coding is that the full capacity of the network can be utilized. In this paper, we propose a new model which incorporates network coding and information security. Specifically, a collection of subsets of links is given, and a wiretapper is allowed to access any one (but not more than one) of these subsets without being able to obtain any information about the message transmitted. Our model includes secret sharing as a special case. We present a construction of secure linear network codes provided a certain graph-theoretic sufficient condition is satisfied.