2026, Vol. 7, Issue 1, Part A

A rapid expansion of Internet-based communication systems has intensified the demand for simple, efficient, and secure data transmission mechanisms suitable for resource-constrained environments and educational or experimental deployments.

This research presents a simple prototype for secure data transmission that integrates lightweight encryption, basic authentication, and integrity verification within a modular communication workflow.

The prototype is designed to operate over standard internet protocols while minimizing computational overhead and implementation complexity, making it suitable for small-scale systems, prototypes, and instructional use.

A symmetric encryption approach is employed to protect data confidentiality, while hash-based message authentication ensures integrity and resistance against tampering during transmission.

Key exchange and session handling are implemented using predefined parameters to reduce handshake latency and simplify configuration without compromising baseline security objectives.

The system architecture separates data acquisition, encryption, transmission, and verification into distinct functional layers to improve clarity, maintainability, and extensibility.

Performance evaluation focuses on transmission delay, processing overhead, and data integrity under normal operating conditions and simulated interference scenarios.

Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed prototype achieves reliable secure transmission with minimal latency increase compared to unsecured communication models.

The findings highlight that meaningful security can be achieved using simplified mechanisms when system scope, threat models, and deployment contexts are clearly defined.

This work provides a practical foundation for further enhancement, experimentation, and teaching of secure communication principles in Internet-based systems.

The prototype emphasizes transparency, reproducibility, and ease of implementation to support comparative analysis, classroom demonstrations, and early-stage research activities effectively.

By avoiding complex cryptographic infrastructures, the approach enables developers and students to understand core security concepts while maintaining functional protection against common network-level threats.

Overall, the proposed prototype demonstrates that simplicity, when combined with careful design assumptions, can support effective secure data transmission in controlled Internet-based communication scenarios reliably and consistently across implementations for academic purposes.