Crypto with Epoxy Tokens, Glass Balls and Lasers

Anonymous Coward writes "Scientists from MIT and ThingMagic have collaborated and developed an innovative crypto mechanism using epoxy tokens, glass spheres and lasers. They have actually created a physical one-way function that cannot be tampered, copied or faked! The full scoop can be found at MSNBC, and also at Nature, & TOI."

Comments

Old Technology, new twist

[lynx_user_abroad]

IIRC, something similar to this (very low tech) was used to create tamper-evident seals on things like the boxes guarding equipment monitoring nuclear sites, etc.

I think the process involved mixing a bunch of little tinfoil sparkles into a clear epoxy resin, applying the resulting glue as a seal, and photographing it from several angles. Simple to create, yet darn near impossible to duplicate a second time. If the blob is missing or different, something fishy is going on.

Re:Old Technology, new twist

[Phil Wherry]

A very similar technology been used for the identification of gems for quite a while. The idea is pretty much the same: shine a laser beam into the gem, then record the pattern generated by internal reflection/refraction. The technique has been around for at least twenty years, I believe. Still, the idea of a physical one-way hash function is interesting and quite likely useful.

Re:Old Technology, new twist

[theCat]

In the Middle Ages when you made a contract with someone it was written twice on the same parchment, at the top and at the bottom. Then the parchment was torn in half unevenly between the two versions of the contract and each party took one of the halves. In the future should the terms of the contract come into question they could verify that the contract each held was in fact the original by realigning them along the tear; the originals would of course match exactly and the veracity of the copy contained therein could be verified.

The jagged edge of the contracts looked like teeth, Latin dent IIRC, and whoever held such a contract was said to be indentured

Didn't require lasers, of course, but did require that the two parts be physically present and visually verified, so it is remarkably similar in principle. The fibers and surface imperfections of the parchment (thin leather) would have taken the place of the glass beads in this case.

So, does the MIT patent fail due to prior art? ;-)