arxiv: 2605.08106 · v1 · submitted 2026-04-27 · 💻 cs.IT · cs.CR· cs.ET· cs.SY· eess.SY· math.IT

Recognition: no theorem link

Secure Integrated Sensing and Communication: Information Theory Offers Insights

Truman Welling , Onur G\"unl\"u , Aylin Yener

Authors on Pith no claims yet

Pith reviewed 2026-05-12 02:14 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification 💻 cs.IT cs.CRcs.ETcs.SYeess.SYmath.IT

keywords secure integrated sensing and communicationinformation theorysecrecyISACjammingtradeoffsprivacy

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The pith

Information theory organizes secure integrated sensing and communication by what must be protected and against whom.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The paper surveys information-theoretic models for systems that use one waveform for both sensing and data transmission, then groups the secure variants according to the protected function and the type of adversary. It covers cases that secure the communication against sensing-related parties, cases that secure the sensing against communication-related parties, and active-adversary settings such as jamming. Throughout the review the authors emphasize the modeling assumptions and the concrete performance limits that emerge when reliability, sensing accuracy, and security must be balanced simultaneously.

Core claim

By first recalling the basic information-theoretic ISAC models and then classifying the secure literature according to protected functionality (communication security, sensing security, or joint) and adversary model (passive or active), the survey identifies the main tradeoffs and shows how these formulations connect to privacy and covert communication problems.

What carries the argument

The central mechanism is the classification of secure ISAC problems by protected functionality and adversary type, which structures the performance metrics and fundamental limits across the reviewed literature.

If this is right

When communication must remain secret from a sensing user, the achievable rate region shrinks compared with unsecured ISAC.
Protecting sensing information from a communication user imposes additional distortion or resolution constraints on the radar-like function.
Active adversaries such as jammers create a three-way tradeoff among communication rate, sensing quality, and security level.
Joint formulations in which both functions need protection lead to coupled secrecy and estimation regions rather than separate constraints.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

The categorized limits suggest waveform designs could be optimized once for all three objectives rather than sequentially.
Similar classification might apply to other dual-use systems such as radar-communication coexistence in shared spectrum.
The privacy links imply that regulatory definitions of sensitive sensing data could draw directly from the information-theoretic metrics already developed.

Load-bearing premise

The reviewed information-theoretic models and existing literature together give a representative picture of the security challenges and tradeoffs that arise in integrated sensing and communication.

What would settle it

A new ISAC model or experimental result that produces security-performance tradeoffs outside the categorized families would show the survey's organization does not capture the essential limits.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2605.08106 by Aylin Yener, Onur G\"unl\"u, Truman Welling.

**Figure 2.** Figure 2: In the monostatic ISAC model the transmitter observes the reflected signal, while a separate receiver observes it in the bistatic case. The green arrows [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p002_2.png] view at source ↗

**Figure 3.** Figure 3: ISAC model under partial secrecy from [3], where only [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p004_3.png] view at source ↗

**Figure 4.** Figure 4: A representative sensing-security setting, where channel-output (sens [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p005_4.png] view at source ↗

read the original abstract

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) combines sensing and communication within a shared system framework by using the same transmitted signal for both objectives. ISAC can improve the efficiency of spectrum and hardware use but also gives rise to new security challenges, as users associated with one function may need to be prevented from inferring information related to the other. This paper surveys information-theoretic approaches to secure ISAC with emphasis on formulations, performance metrics, and fundamental limits. We first review the information-theoretic ISAC models that underlie secure formulations. We then organize the secure ISAC literature according to the protected functionality and the adversary model, covering secure communication, sensing security, and active-adversary settings such as jamming. We also discuss formulations in which communication security and sensing security interact more directly, as well as their connections to privacy and covert communication. Throughout, we highlight the main modeling assumptions and the insights they provide on the tradeoffs among communication reliability, sensing performance, and security.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Desk Editor's Note private letter to a colleague

This is a straightforward survey that sorts the info-theoretic secure ISAC papers by protected function and adversary type, with no new theorems or data.

read the letter

This survey organizes existing information-theoretic results on secure integrated sensing and communication by what is being protected and who the adversary is. It does not add new derivations, bounds, or experiments of its own. The paper first recaps the basic ISAC models that support the secure versions, then groups the literature into secure communication, sensing security, jamming and other active attacks, plus cases where the two security goals interact directly. It also notes connections to privacy and covert communication. The useful part is the repeated attention to modeling assumptions and what they imply for the tradeoffs among communication rate, sensing accuracy, and security level. That structure gives a clearer picture of where the fundamental limits sit across different setups. The main limitation is that everything rests on how accurately and completely the cited works are summarized. A survey lives or dies on coverage and fidelity to the originals, and without checking every reference it is hard to judge whether key papers are missing or whether any insights are flattened. There are no original claims to verify for circularity or fitting issues, which removes one risk but also means the contribution is purely organizational. Readers who are new to the area or who need a quick map of performance-security tradeoffs in dual-function wireless systems will find it helpful for orientation. Experts already working in the citations will get less out of it. The topic is relevant for spectrum-efficient 6G-style systems, so a careful survey can still serve the field. I would send this to peer review. The plan in the abstract is reasonable, and if the execution delivers accurate summaries and balanced coverage it can be a usable reference even without fresh results.

Referee Report

2 major / 3 minor

Summary. This survey paper reviews information-theoretic approaches to secure integrated sensing and communication (ISAC). It first reviews the underlying ISAC models that support secure formulations, then organizes the literature according to the protected functionality (communication security versus sensing security) and adversary model (including passive eavesdroppers and active adversaries such as jammers). It further examines settings where communication and sensing security interact directly, as well as connections to privacy and covert communication, while highlighting modeling assumptions and the resulting tradeoffs among communication reliability, sensing performance, and security.

Significance. If the survey's taxonomy and summaries are accurate, it offers a timely and useful synthesis of a rapidly growing area. By structuring the literature around protected functionality and adversary type rather than by specific techniques, the paper clarifies distinct security formulations and their fundamental limits. The explicit attention to modeling assumptions and tradeoffs provides a framework that can help researchers identify gaps and design new secure ISAC schemes. As a survey without new theorems, its primary contribution is organizational clarity and insight extraction from existing results.

major comments (2)

The central organizational claim (abstract and §1) that the literature is partitioned by protected functionality and adversary type is load-bearing for the survey's value. However, the manuscript does not explicitly justify why certain works are placed in one category rather than another when they address both communication and sensing security simultaneously; a short decision tree or table in §2 would strengthen the taxonomy's reproducibility.
§4 (active-adversary settings): the discussion of jamming models cites several works but does not compare the resulting secrecy-distortion regions or the conditions under which jamming can be mitigated by ISAC waveform design. Without such a comparative summary, the claimed insights on tradeoffs remain qualitative rather than quantitative.

minor comments (3)

The notation for mutual information and equivocation rates is introduced in §2 but is not uniformly applied in later sections; adding a short notation table would improve readability.
Several figure captions (e.g., those illustrating rate-distortion-security regions) omit the precise parameter settings or the source of the plotted curves, making it difficult to reproduce the depicted tradeoffs.
The connections to covert communication in §5 are interesting but reference only a subset of the relevant literature; adding two or three key citations on covert ISAC would increase completeness without altering the survey's scope.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

2 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for the careful reading and constructive comments on our survey. We address each major comment below and indicate the revisions we will make.

read point-by-point responses

Referee: The central organizational claim (abstract and §1) that the literature is partitioned by protected functionality and adversary type is load-bearing for the survey's value. However, the manuscript does not explicitly justify why certain works are placed in one category rather than another when they address both communication and sensing security simultaneously; a short decision tree or table in §2 would strengthen the taxonomy's reproducibility.

Authors: We agree that an explicit justification for category placement, particularly for works addressing both communication and sensing security, would improve the taxonomy's reproducibility. In the revised manuscript we will add a short decision tree or table in §2 that states the classification criteria, with explicit handling of papers that span multiple protected functionalities. revision: yes
Referee: §4 (active-adversary settings): the discussion of jamming models cites several works but does not compare the resulting secrecy-distortion regions or the conditions under which jamming can be mitigated by ISAC waveform design. Without such a comparative summary, the claimed insights on tradeoffs remain qualitative rather than quantitative.

Authors: We acknowledge that the current discussion in §4 is primarily qualitative. While a fully exhaustive quantitative comparison of all secrecy-distortion regions lies beyond the scope of a survey, we will insert a concise comparative table that summarizes the key secrecy-distortion results and mitigation conditions reported in the cited works. This addition will make the tradeoff insights more quantitative without introducing new derivations. revision: partial

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

Survey paper with no original derivations or load-bearing claims exhibits no circularity

full rationale

This paper is explicitly a survey that reviews and organizes existing information-theoretic literature on secure ISAC. It presents no new theorems, derivations, fitted parameters, or empirical predictions. The abstract and structure describe coverage of models, metrics, and limits from external works, organized by protected functionality and adversary type. No step in the presented content reduces by construction to its own inputs, self-citations, or ansatzes. All references are to prior independent literature. This matches the default expectation for non-derivational survey papers and satisfies the rule that self-contained descriptive organization against external benchmarks receives score 0.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 0 axioms · 0 invented entities

This survey paper does not introduce new mathematical models, parameters, or entities. It relies entirely on the body of existing literature in information theory for ISAC security.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5482 in / 1196 out tokens · 63350 ms · 2026-05-12T02:14:52.153945+00:00 · methodology

discussion (0)

Reference graph

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