Path-Controlled Secure Network Coding

Multicast for securely sharing confidential data among many users is becoming increasingly important. Currently, it relies on duplicate-and-forward routing and cryptographic methods based on computational security. However, these approaches neither attain multicast capacity of the network, nor ensure long-term security against advances in computing (information-theoretic security: ITS). Existing ITS solutions--quantum key distribution (QKD), physical layer security (PLS), and secure network coding (SNC)--still fail to enable scalable networks, as their underlying assumptions, such as trusted nodes and wiretap thresholds, gradually become invalid as the network grows. Here, we develop an efficient multi-tree multicast path-finding method to address this issue, integrating it with universal strongly ramp SNC. This system, path-controlled universal strongly ramp SNC (PUSNEC), can be overlaid onto QKD/PLS networks, enabling multicast capacity, ITS, and scalability. We derive the maximum leakage information to an eavesdropper under the probabilistic wiretap network assumption and demonstrate secure multicast in multi-hop networks through numerical simulations. Our quantitative analysis of the secrecyreliability tradeoff highlights a practical approach to achieving secure, reliable multicast on a global scale.