Joint physical-application layer security for wireless multimedia delivery

Abstract

In recent years, there have been increasing demands for the security of wireless multimedia applications. Essentially, wireless networks, compared to traditional wired networks, are more likely to suffer from malicious attacks. Most current security methods consider physical layer and application layer security technologies independently and separately. Usually, physical layer information is dynamic in wireless networks, and application layer information is related to wireless multimedia delivery. Importantly, both of them have significant impact on security performance. In this work, we propose a joint framework involving both the physical and application layer security technologies. Specifically, by exploiting the security capacity and signal processing technologies at the physical layer and the authentication and watermarking strategies at the application layer, the available network resources can be utilized efficiently. In addition, scalable multimedia security services can be maximized within the given multimedia delivery deadlines. In particular, this joint scheme can be implemented easily with low communication overhead, which facilitates its deployment in large-scale wireless multimedia systems.