On the secrecy rate region for the interference channel

This paper studies interference channels with security constraints. The existence of an external eavesdropper in a two-user interference channel is assumed, where the network users would like to secure their messages from the external eavesdropper. The cooperative binning and channel prefixing scheme is proposed for this system model which allows users to cooperatively add randomness to the channel in order to degrade the observations of the external eavesdropper. This scheme allows users to add randomness to the channel in two ways: 1) Users cooperate in their design of the binning codebooks, and 2) Users cooperatively exploit the channel prefixing technique. As an example, the channel prefixing technique is exploited in the Gaussian case to transmit a superposition signal consisting of binning codewords and independently generated noise samples. Gains obtained form the cooperative binning and channel prefixing scheme compared to the single user scenario reveals the positive effect of interference in increasing the network security. Remarkably, interference can be exploited to cooperatively add randomness into the network in order to enhance the security. © 2008 IEEE.