Deep Joint Source-Channel and Encryption Coding: Secure Semantic Communications

Deep learning driven joint source-channel coding (JSCC) for wireless image or video transmission, also called DeepJSCC, has been a topic of interest recently with very promising results. The idea is to map similar source samples to nearby points in the channel input space such that, despite the noise introduced by the channel, the input can be recovered with minimal distortion. However, the inherent correlation between the source sample and channel input makes DeepJSCC vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks. In this paper, we propose the first DeepJSCC scheme for wireless image transmission that is secure against eavesdroppers, called DeepJSCEC. The proposed solution not only preserves the results demonstrated by DeepJSCC, it also provides security against chosen-plaintext attacks from the eavesdropper, without the need to make assumptions about the eavesdropper's channel condition or its intended use of the intercepted signal.