Animated Encryption

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."

Comments

Unbreakable encryption?

[BlueWonder]

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.

Not Using Animation to encrypt

[nairnr]

Maybe it is just me, but I think the poster is a little bit confused. It is not that animation is being used in encryption, but rather he was inspired by the crowd scene in Hunchback, where the characters movements were essential being controlled by random numbers to create a lively and chaotic look to it.

The article then states that the thought was to use random data in an encryption algorythm to make it unbreakable. So I don't think that we will be seeing messages passed around the the next Disney flick...

New Patented Idea

[mborland]

I can't disclose the details of my new patented idea for what I know is an unbreakable encryption algorithm, but I will describe my research.

I was sitting outside and saw all the blades of grass swaying in the wind before me. I noticed how some were shorter than others, and that they actually didn't all have the exact same color. I thought if I assigned a number to each of these and several other characteristics, I'd be well on my way to unbreakable encryption.

My dad used to be a pretty famous rodeo clown in the 60s and an alumnus of the college I'm attending, so when I approached the board of trustees for approval for my research, they were ecstatic! They gave me $20,000 to conduct my research. Now I will be busy all summer observing the grass swaying in the wind. I plan to have a prototype ready at some point, I hope.

unimpressive

[frovingslosh]

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.

More Details - His Abstract

[Cryptosporidium]

This is a direct quote from his science fair project abstract:

The purpose of this project was to create unbreakable cryptography employing a random number generator for personal and business use on the Internet or for internal communications and data storage. A literature search found that currently used methods have computational security (DES, Public Key) and that only cryptography with "one-time pad" encryption and random keys has unconditional security. The hypothesis for this project was that unconditional cryptography is possible if the random number generator has perfect probability and is mathematically random. A wide range of random number generators (computer built-ins and from the literature) were tested for randomness, speed, range of seed numbers, simplicity, and period length. Randomness was tested for frequency patterns using the chi-square test method.

The best random number generator (from literature) was combined with a shift cipher to produce cryptography that is simple to implement, suitable for personal or networked computers, and has unconditional security. The method uses one time, random keys and modulus arithmetic to make the cipher one-way and unbreakable. Disks containing a large array coordinates of the seed used to generate the one-time, random key can be transmitted publicly. The developed cryptography would be suitable for personal use, business sensitive messages and data, and top-secret military communications.

two words: SNAKE OIL

[Dr. Awktagon]

Yup, all the tell-tale signs are there:

• claims that it's potentially "unbreakable"
• hasn't spent much of his academic career breaking other people's cryptography
• uses the clout of his dad to get funding
• and of course, he's patenting it, which means it won't be of any use to anyone.

My guess is, he found some "smooth noise" generator and thought that it would make a good source of "random numbers", used, e.g., as a key schedule algorithm, and as soon as the patent is published (which it will be, thanks to the dumb patent office), it will be broken (it probably has a short "key" to set initial conditions, which will be easy to break) and this guy will be forgotten.

Though the cartoon connection is kinda cute and might get some press attention.

Next?

Snake Oil

[Jerf]

Assuming this abstract is complete and correct, then it provides us enough information to know that his encryption technique is more snake oil.

Specifically, we have the unbreakable claim warning sign, and even more specifically, this is almost certainly one of the one -time pad errors:

The bits in the pad cannot be generated by an algorithm or cipher. They must be truly random, using a real random source such as specialized hardware, radioactive decay timings, etc. Some snake oil vendors will try to dance around this issue, and talk about functions they perform on the bit stream, things they do with the bit stream vs. the plaintext, or something similar. But this still doesn't change the fact that anything that doesn't use real random bits is not an OTP. The important part of an OTP is the source of the bits, not what one does with them.

There's also the technobabble, secret algorithms, and revolutionary breakthrough warning signs.

I hope they enjoy the $20,000 patent, 'cause it's not worth the paper it's printed on.