  Authentication is a key element of security, by which a receiver confirms the
sender identity of a message. Typical approaches include either key-based
authentication at the application layer or physical layer authentication (PLA),
where a message is considered authentic if it appears to have gone through the
legitimate channel. In both cases a source of randomness is needed, whereas for
PLA the random nature of the communication channel is exploited. In this paper
we compare the various approaches using in all cases the channel as a source of
randomness. We consider a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system with a
finite number of antennas. Simple auto-regressive (AR) models for its evolution
as well as the relation of the legitimate and attacker channel are considered.
In this setting the attacker can either predict the key used for key-based
authentication or forge the channel estimated at the legitimate receiver for
PLA. The analysis includes both symmetric and asymmetric key-based
authentication. We compare the schemes in terms of false alarm and missed
detection probability and we outline best attack strategies.
