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Animated Encryption

Posted by timothy on from the things-to-dance-with dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "Cartoons for fun and secrecy -- A student at the University of Dayton has apparently come up with an encryption scheme using computer generated animation. Story at the Chronicle of Higher Education."

7 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Scant on details by SpatchMonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The article was a bit scant on details. As we've seen before, if you keep your encryption scheme unpunlished and just claim that it is 'unbreakable', usually someone comes along later when it is in use and breaks it for you.

    Actually it sounds quite similar to the 'teenage genius' story of that Irish schoolgirl who had her similarly 'unbreakable' matrix encryption scheme widely publicized without peer review, and then broken.

    It'll be interesting to see what happens in this case ..

  2. No details? by DaveHowe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There seem to be no details in the story about just What this marvelous breakthough is; it can't just be that they use encrypted data as motion data and generate a cartoon of it - that is just steganography, and a pretty obvious version too (plus of course, any movement of one character that obscured a move of another would cause data loss).
    Anyone know of a more technical piece on this?

    --
    -=DaveHowe=-
  3. Unbreakable encryption? by BlueWonder · · Score: 5, Interesting
    An unlikely combination of interests -- cartoons and math -- has inspired a sophomore at the University of Dayton to develop a new, and potentially unbreakable, encryption technology.

    There already is an unbreakable encryption: the One-Time Pad. Furthermore, it is mathematically provable that no unbreakable encryption can have a shorter key than the One-Time Pad. Since the One-Time Pad algorithm is already extremely simple and fast (XORing the key with the plaintext), I don't see a need for any other unbreakable encryption.

  4. Do I understand correclty? by gfilion · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Working with stick men in animation, Mr. Kauffman wanted to improve upon those techniques, assigning more numbers to more body parts and actions.

    While studying number generators for the cartoon project, he found references to mathematicians and computer scientists who had theorized that the technique could be used in encryption technology [...]

    "Since you don't know what any of the values are mathematically, [a hacker] can't solve it," says Robert E. Kauffman, who is a senior research chemist at Dayton and Jason Kauffman's father.

    If I understand it correctly, Alice sends a cartoon to Bob. Bob knows which features to looks for (for example the head and feets) -- that's the secret key -- and can then reconstruct the message by analysing the movements of these features.

    Not too dumb, but it looks more like steganography than cryptography.

    GFK's

  5. unimpressive by frovingslosh · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Too many times someone without a good background in this area thinks they have done something impressive, when they have really left wide open holes. Clearly we are not being given enough information here to prove this is the case, but the important thing is that we are not being given enough information to evaluate it either way. The article makes some vague claims but they are pretty lame:

    "Since you don't know what any of the values are mathematically, [a hacker] can't solve it," says Robert E. Kauffman, who is a senior research chemist at Dayton and Jason Kauffman's father. Robert Kauffman formed a partnership with his son and the university to patent the idea. The Kauffmans are reluctant to go into more detail about the idea because it's in the patenting process.

    Cryptography based on a hacker "not knowing" something can be in for quite a surprise. And there is not even a hint here that this technique is based on a mathematically sound formula that is "hard" to solve. Perhaps this guy is on to something, but this attempt to talk about it but at the same time claim they can't talk about it yet leads me to believe this is more of an exercise in hype or ego than anything scientific. Cartoon cryptography might turn out to be a fitting term for it.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  6. Re:Computer != true randomness by Toshito · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You are correct, but I must say that the Germanium diode you are talking about must be considered as an external source of randomness, since it's not something normally found in a computer.

    What I meant to say is that in today's personal computers, there is nothing truely random.

    Video poker machines have been exploited because the random numbers they generates tend to repeat. When you sample those numbers over a couple of weeks, you can see patterns emerging from those numbers. If you can find a formula or method that duplicates theses patterns, you have a way to predict the "random" numbers that the machine will generate.

    --
    Try it! Library of Babel
  7. Anyone Know His Dorm Number? by SiMac · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This kid could really use a copy of "RSA Laboratories' Frequently Asked Questions About Today's Cryptography" or "Applied Cryptography" or even "PGP DH vs. RSA FAQ". At the University of Dayton page on this discovery (https://alumni.udayton.edu/np_story.asp?storyID=7 84), he says that Triple-DES could be easily broken.

    That is complete B.S.

    Triple-DES is a 112-bit algorithm, and perhaps even stronger that Rjindael (AES), since it's been subjected to rigorous cryptanalysis for many, many years.

    It seems as if the encryption technology might be secure, but without any information on it, I am very skeptical.