A Novel Key Distribution Scheme Based on Transmission Delays

With the development of IoT (Internet of Things), the demand for security is increasing day by day. However, the traditional key distribution scheme is high in cost and complicated in calculation, so a lightweight key distribution scheme is urgently needed. In this paper, a novel key distribution scheme based on transmission delay is proposed. Based on the experimental observation, we find that the statistical characteristics of their transmission delays are about the same if any two terminals transmit the equal-length packets on the Internet and are different for different transmission paths. Accordingly, we propose a method to customize transmission delays. On the Internet, we have deployed 7 forwarding hosts. By randomly determining the forwarding path of packets, we can get customized transmission delay sets. Then, these sets are processed, respectively, by correcting outlier, normalizing, quantizing, encoding, and reconciling so as to be able to realize key distribution between two sides. Next, we design a key distribution protocol and a key distribution system, which consists of a Management Center, a Packet Forwarding Network, and Users. Finally, we reason the security of the key distribution protocol with formal analysis tools.