Error correction over wireless channels using symmetric cryptography

Wireless communication systems are under heavy investigations by the research community, especially since the past decade. Many popular applications over the wireless communication networks have emerged recently including, cellular telephony, SMS, MMS, web browsing and video conferencing, to name a few. Communication over wireless channel, however, is inherently prone to transmission errors. Additionaly efforts have also been made to secure the wireless transmission, using cryptography as a prominent tool. In this paper we introduce a novel method which combines cryptography and error correction together i.e. we utilize the methods for data security as a tool for the detection and correction of transmission errors. To support our research, we provide simulation results obtained using this method which we call as Joint Channel Coding and Cryptography. Joint Channel Coding and Cryptography is an extension of Soft Input Decryption with feedback, which is used for improvement of channel decoding of secured messages. Results of simulations of Joint Channel Coding and Cryptography are compared to results of convolutional coding with the same coding rate. In this way, Joint Channel Coding and Cryptography brings a coding gain of 0.72 dB, while fulfilling security requirements at the same time.