A new algorithm for unkeyed jam resistance

Abstract

An important problem for secure communication is that of achieving jam resistance, without any prior shared secret between the sender and receiver, and without limits on the assumed computational power of the attacker. To date, only one system has been proposed for this, the BBC system, which is based on coding theory using codes derived from arbitrary hash functions. It is unfortunate that only one, narrow solution has been found for this important problem. We now propose a new algorithm for this problem: the HBT algorithm. It is very different from BBC, using codes based on monotone Boolean functions (MBF), rather than hash functions. It is also more general. We show that despite being very different from BBC, the latter can be viewed as a special case of it. In fact, a theorem proves that all such codes are special cases of this new system. We give empirical results suggesting that this new approach is useful, and describe directions for future research.