Secure unicast and multicast over satellite DVB using chaotic generators

Abstract

Today's communication technology research is characterised by a powerful 'all IP' trend. There is already a strong internet backbone in place that has the capacity to offer high quality services to the most users. However, in some cases, the 'last mile' problem remains to be solved and one of the possibilities to resolve this problem is the satellite digital video broadcasting (DVB). This paper proposes a security upgrade for IP communications over satellite DVB that is suited for the characteristics of satellite communications and that offers support for both unicast and multicast communications. The usage of chaotic functions is proposed both for the generation of new keys and for the encryption of data. We propose the use of a strong chaotic key generator and of a robust encryption algorithm, which have been previously studied, to enhance the properties of the system. They offer strong cryptographic properties and low computational requirements.