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"Nearly Unbreakable" Encryption Scheme Inspired By Human Biology
rjmarvin (3001897) writes "Researchers at the U.K.'s Lancaster University have reimagined the fundamental logic behind encryption, stumbling across a radically new way to encrypt data while creating software models to simulate how the human heart and lungs coordinate rhythms. The encryption method published in the American Physical Society journal and filed as a patent entitled 'Encoding Data Using Dynamic System Coupling,' transmits and receive multiple encrypted signals simultaneously, creating an unlimited number of possibilities for the shared encryption key and making it virtually impossible to decrypt using traditional methods. One of the researchers, Peter McClintock, called the encryption scheme 'nearly unbreakable.'
Every intelligence everywhere can invent an encryption scheme it can't break.
Don't ever use any crypto algorithm the experts haven't been attacking and publishing about for a while.
Its unbreakable...
Downgraded to "nearly" unbrakeable
Kinda like global "warming" now downgraded to global climate "change"
The keyword here is nearly, which means it can be broken.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Not that I've actually done my own research, but what qualifications do these folks have to state the security of an encryption mechanism? Everybody who finds a new way to twist a message thinks it's secure.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I guarantee it.
TFA contains no actual information, just an assertion that the interaction between poorly-described models of "biological" systems might kinda possibly maybe make them money because the world needs car door key fobs, or something like that.
Deep.
It should link here:http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=69025&page=1 Yeah, if you could fix it, that would be greaaaat.
broken link fail
Red flag #1 publication to inappropriate forum. If your "breakthrough" in physics only got published in the Journal of English as a Foreign Language, it's most likely bunk. Likewise then, if you've got some crypto results and the best place you could find to publish them was a physics journal, that's a bad sign. There are journals about crypto. If this wasn't sent to them it means nobody serious has looked at this. If it was sent and they declined it means serious people laughed their heads off.
Red flag #2 use of phrase "nearly unbreakable" which doesn't mean anything. Anybody who knew what the hell they were talking about would steer clear of that phrase, but oh my, if you're clueless it sounds impressive. So, probably clueless then.
The test of a good encryption system is the test of time. If you have just created something, you don't also get to claim that there's nothing wrong with it - at best you get to say that it's something interesting to study.
What is more
>Lancaster university
Eh, plate glass.
I'm calling bullshit.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
You try to decrypt the message but the program says it sees you as a friend?
I don't know whether or not this idea actually works, or what level of security it may or may not provide, but it's addressing an already thoroughly-solved problem. It appears to provide a symmetric key cipher, which means -- regardless of how radical the approach may or may not be -- it's in direct competition with algorithms like AES and the multitude of other well-respected and heavily-researched block and stream ciphers. The abstract and summary mention "an unlimited number of possibilities for a shared encryption key", but existing algorithms already provide enormous key spaces.
Of course, some cryptanalytic breakthrough could provide a way to break all existing ciphers, but who's to say the same breakthrough wouldn't impact systems based on this idea. And, actually, we already have another approach which uses special hardware at each end, Quantum Cryptography, which can absolutely guarantee security, unless our understanding of the Uncertainty Principle is wrong. Or unless there are bugs in the physical implementation, which there have been, and I see no reason that this "Dynamic Systems Coupling" approach wouldn't be subject to the same kinds of problems.
So... meh.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Anyone can invent an encryption scheme so clever that he or she can't think of a way to break it.
The author's claim that it's very hard to break only means that THEY don't know how to break it. That's meaningless, because anyone and everyone can come up with a puzzle they don't know how to solve. That doesn't mean it's hard, just that they don't know how it's done.
A trivial example would be a kindergartener who might observe that if you encode a message by writing it with letters, they don't kow how to read that message. That's only because the kid doesn't know how to read. It in no way suggests that reading is impossible. For many Slashdot readers, compiling a message into a Windows resource file makes unreadable _to_them. Windows resource files are of course quite easy to read, if you know how. These researchers don't know how to read their own encoding. So what? That doesn't mean _I_ don't know how to read their stuff.
Their scheme does have one attribute that's good - it can generate long keys. So can a random number generator. They MAY have a good idea, but we won't know until alot of other people try to break their encryption and fail.
It's been covered in multiple Sci-Fi stories over the last 40 years that I recal reading in Analog, F&SF, Galaxy and what not.
Even if this is true, the NSA will figure out a way to make it insecure. Under the pretense of security they insure that the ability to do evil things is built in to all communication technology.
Why is Snark Required?
They probably got this idea from an episode of Voyager.
There's nothing in the protocol description about key sharing. If you already have a way to share keys, why not just use a one time pad that's proven to be unbreakable?
Many of you may know FeFe "Felix von Leitner" Extreme-Coder/CCC-Member with his infamous but german blog "https://blog.fefe.de"
His statement/no citation but sense of words:
"REAL crpytologists will take
1.) a long time,
2.) many attack tests and
3.) mathematical proofs
before they dare to call a crypto safe ENOUGH"
And this statement remained valid till now, just think about the eliptic curve that was shaped to comfort the NSA.
So if you accept fefes prediction you can really deduce that the contrary to the researchers claims will be the case, because of many reasons.
1.) narrow sight - if you're doing research your biggest enemy is you, because you are in danger of being so full of yourself or your idea that you won't see the invariants.
Just remeber how often you have written code you thought must work 100%, and got supprised because you didn't catch an "invariant" that was actually in plane sight.
2.) hostile thinking - and well this is much worse we can suspect one thing especially after the "Rescola" Gambit
The agencies gotten too smart to only taint the sources, because that's to obvious you need a social drive like a group leader of a standardization group, or the official statement of people with an unscathed background (social engineering people into a certain behaviour).
Be paranoid, don't trust people analyse their arguments!
Someone please tell me the patent is more about the machinery used and not so much the algorithm.
Oh, boy! If only they had this waaaay back in the 1940's. World War II could have been ended even sooner. And without the Atom Bomb (yes, all it takes is *one* atom, just one and ...).
Nice to know that cooking up a steganographic codeswarm is anything like a new idea. At least in science mags and patent law.
Biologically, or at least medically, that sounds a lot like Idiopathic Polydiarroeic Bostercariosis. Of the slightly purulent variety. It's not like ... well, never mind.
Maybe their real message is in their purported medium? Hidden in the mass of sheets on the line, wildly flapping in the wind? Right beside the herd of stampeding unicorns. Ridden by unseen gorillas. That are really actors in gorilla-suits.
Practically unbreakable.
The paper contains none of the cryptographic analysis necessary to show that this is a secure cryptographic system. It's just another one of these "let's take a chaotic dynamical system and use it for cryptography" papers.
The paper doesn't tell you much about cryptography, but it does illustrate the failures of peer review.
From the abstract it seems that they are claiming:
1) Boy, those chaotic systems look complex.
2) Gee they can synchronize
3) If we superimpose other chaotic systems on top, then it looks even more complexer.
So something like Walsh codes implemented badly. Walsh codes have nothing to do with cryptography btw.
What they haven''t shown is a lower bound for brute for attack complexity, or why it is resistant to any of the normal attack methods. I don't see why an imposter could not sync to the source the same way the intended recipient does. From the paper, I see several linear systems of equations describing the chaotic oscillators.
This will fall fast when a real cryptographer has go at it.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Balliol, Oxford. Founded ~1263. Has also stood the test of time.
But I'll never master your dulcet northern charm.
Thanks for playing.
"..... and filed as a patent entitled 'Encoding Data Using Dynamic System Coupling,' ..."
patenting mathematics that is.
Encryption is not a computer science problem, it's a social problem with humans. Secrecy is violence.
"Why are you so sure it's not the not step"
Can you rephrase that, I'm not understanding what you mean. As far as what I'm sure of, I said, "they May have a good idea, we won't know until ..."
I didn't say they don't have an awesome idea (or that they do). I'm saying there is no reason to think it's good or bad, based on the researchers not knowing how to decrypt it. Anyone can string together a series of mathematical operations that they don't know how to undo.
OK, first bypass the click troll and get to the actual paper.
The general idea seems to be to transmit a large amount of noisy data per plaintext bit. Historically, crypto schemes which make the input much bigger are disfavored, but communications bandwidth is cheaper now and that might be OK.
The author of the paper seems to have fallen into the old trap of thinking that that analog signals have infinite amounts of data in them. He writes things like ''The encrypting key space is unbounded." and "The choice of the form of coupling functions comes from a set of functions that is not bounded." ("High-end" audio people also fall for this.) In reality, at some point you hit a noise threshold, and, anyway, down at the bottom, electrons and photons are discrite. Also, to be usable, whatever is used for the key has to be of finite size, and preferably not too big.
"No new cypher is worth looking at unless it comes from someone who has already broken a very hard one. - Friedman.
Honestly what networking stacks actually implement the OSI 7 Layer model?
OSI 7 Layer model ignores the CROSS CUTTING ASPECTS OF CONCERNs of the ABILITIES such as SECURABILITY, PERFORMABILITY et al.
They do not even address this in their layerd between nearest neighbours, where one layer services the layer ABOVE and is services by the layer BELOW (assuming not periphery layers on the top most and bottom most layers).
OSI 7 Layer model is still taught at schools but in reality, it is a model with inherent concerns that are not addressed.
You're only as good as your last RAE :-)
http://physicsworld.com/cws/ar...
"An unofficial Physics World ranking that lists departments according to their average research score shows Lancaster on top and Cambridge close behind. Both departments also received the maximum 5* rating in the last RAE in 2001, but the other 5* departments - Oxford, Southampton and Imperial College London - fell outside the top 10 this time round. "
Having a look at the paper, I can absolutely see that the encryption technique seems on the face of it to exceed computable solution. What I would need to be convinced about is the integrity of the communication; is what you get at the end of it guaranteed to be perfectly reflective of what you put into it?
(I can also see a sketch proof to the effect that the overall system can be made reliable with a probability approaching 1 - for arbitrarily small , but that's macroscopic behaviour. Microscopic, the system looks like it's capable of handling very regular systems very well, but given the reliance on Bayesian inference will drop reliability for anything with some very likely inputs and some less likely outputs.)
Myu:
...and I can definitely say this is unbreakable. I might even read the article.
Best decryption tool ever.
This is the perfect example of security through obscurity. If I were to use spread spectrum communications with random modulation types and data encoding schemes I can claim this too.
..plus 25 nearly unbreakable ciphers. I will not sell you the OTP, though. I keep that for contingencies.
restrictions in keylength != restrictions in usage time.
OTP (one time pad) only requires that you have a secure channel available at a time before data needs to be sent, not that it's still available at the time of transmission. think about military units during a war.
it's like an encryption battery: it lets you plug in(pre-existing secure channel), charge up(exchange OTPs), and continue to securely communicate even after the pre-existing security channel goes down (until you run out of juice)
don't have a very good track record, at the moment.
1) Do you know how work is selected to be part of the RAE? (or, put another way, do you understand how it is gameable?)
2) Do you know how the RAE is judged? Even the short descriptions of the categories 4*-1* should leave any researcher feeling embarrassed that their work is being classified in this way ("national" vs "international").
3) In particular, are you aware that nobody respects it as an academic evaluation? It is a political exercise used to assign funding in a way suitable to government policy.
4) Do you realise that you have linked to an arbitrary method for ranking the raw data chosen by the author of the Physics World article? (whose background seems to be, "I did a Physics PhD at Durham, then I started writing for Physics World." That makes her as much of an authority on the RAE as I am.)
5) ...which even then trivially has numbers so close as to be insignificant? Scroll down and you'll see half the comments complaining about this.
If you are a Lancastrian, sir, I regret that my point is proven.
The description match some of the crypto in the NSA museum. This is not new. I should ask them if the algorythm the KY-3 used is declassified now. They'd made the hardware FOYO before I got out in the 80s.
http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=69025&page=1
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Argh!
6) Did you notice the :-) ?
Just route it all to /dev/null
Of course, it's still game over if someone can scrape your memory...
OMG, I can't believe this tripe snipe got voted up to 5. This kind of thinking would set mathematics back by nearly 200 years.
Infinite doesn't mean what you think it means (continuum hypothesis undecidable in ZFC).
Continuous doesn't mean what you think it means (just for appetizers, the Weierstrass function, Cantor function).
If you're an EE who has never taken a course in measure theory, a unit impulse is not what you think it is (Dirac delta function); "Formally, the Lebesgue integral provides the necessary analytic device.")
Is the Dirac delta function nearly a function? I guess it must be, because it certainly isn't a function by any formal definition that doesn't look like Spock chess compared to naive algebra (subsuming, for starters, all that came before circa 1850), yet it takes you to where you want to go, regardless, so long as the first step on unfolding your algebraic briar patch is an implicit integration.
Sometimes "nearly" is employed to mean "without first having to enter into abstruse thickets that probably wouldn't change a damn thing anyway, but I don't wish to speak as carelessly as calling the Dirac delta function an actual function because those daft EEs might just start to believe in the fiction".
DES was 'nearly unbreakable' in the 70's
Worst. Signature. Ever.
More like this, please.
-kgj
Oh, yes, and the Titanic was unsinkable.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
He does you know. See the sheer intelligence (not) of Sardaukar86 http://news.slashdot.org/comme... and http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
thats what it sounds to me...
Good you cleared that up.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"You barge into discussions with your off-topic hosts file nonsense" - by Zontar The Mindless (9002) on Friday April 11, 2014 @09:51PM (#46731153) FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
You said my "APK Hosts File Engine" is a virus/malware http://slashdot.org/comments.p... but it's EASILY PROVABLE it's not, right there in that link too.
Now PROVE YOUR FALSE ACCUSATION above: Show me a quote OR POST of me posting off topic on hosts where they did NOT apply... go for it!
---
You avoided backing up your accusation where YOU said I say you are Barbara, not Barbie = TomHudson (same person http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... , & sockpuppeteer like you) -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Funny you can't back up your "bluster" there either, lol...
---
Why, Lastly?
You're crackers! See here multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> So, THIS quote below is my policy on sockpuppeteers like you Zontar = TrollingForHostsFiles (your sockpuppetry):
"The only way to a achieve peace, is thru the ELIMINATION of those who would perpetuate war (sockpuppet masters like YOU, troll -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ). THIS IS MY PROGRAMMING -> http://start64.com/index.php?o... & soon, I will be UNSTOPPABLE..." - Ultron 6 FROM -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Which quite obviously, I am, since none of you DOLTISH TROLLS are able to validly technically disprove my points on hosts enumerated in the link to my program above of how hosts give users of them more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity... period!
(Trolls like YOU that use sockpuppets http://slashdot.org/comments.p... (your sockpuppet "alterego" TrollingForHostsFiles) & TomHudson - Barbara, not Barbie too http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... before you)
... apk
"You barge into discussions with your off-topic hosts file nonsense" - by Zontar The Mindless (9002) on Friday April 11, 2014 @09:51PM (#46731153) FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
You said my "APK Hosts File Engine" is a virus/malware http://slashdot.org/comments.p... but it's EASILY PROVABLE it's not, right there in that link too.
Now PROVE YOUR FALSE ACCUSATION above: Show me a quote OR POST of me posting off topic on hosts where they did NOT apply... go for it!
---
You avoided backing up your accusation where YOU said I say you are Barbara, not Barbie = TomHudson (same person http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... , & sockpuppeteer like you) -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Funny you can't back up your "bluster" there either, lol...
---
Why, Lastly?
You're crackers! See here multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> So, THIS quote below is my policy on sockpuppeteers like you Zontar = TrollingForHostsFiles (your sockpuppetry):
"The only way to a achieve peace, is thru the ELIMINATION of those who would perpetuate war (sockpuppet masters like YOU, troll -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ). THIS IS MY PROGRAMMING -> http://start64.com/index.php?o... & soon, I will be UNSTOPPABLE..." - Ultron 6 FROM -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Which quite obviously, I am, since none of you DOLTISH TROLLS are able to validly technically disprove my points on hosts enumerated in the link to my program above of how hosts give users of them more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity... period!
(Trolls like YOU that use sockpuppets http://slashdot.org/comments.p... (your sockpuppet "alterego" TrollingForHostsFiles) & TomHudson - Barbara, not Barbie too http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... before you)
... apk
"You barge into discussions with your off-topic hosts file nonsense" - by Zontar The Mindless (9002) on Friday April 11, 2014 @09:51PM (#46731153) FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
You said my "APK Hosts File Engine" is a virus/malware http://slashdot.org/comments.p... but it's EASILY PROVABLE it's not, right there in that link too.
Now PROVE YOUR FALSE ACCUSATION above: Show me a quote OR POST of me posting off topic on hosts where they did NOT apply... go for it!
---
You avoided backing up your accusation where YOU said I say you are Barbara, not Barbie = TomHudson (same person http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... , & sockpuppeteer like you) -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Funny you can't back up your "bluster" there either, lol...
---
Why, Lastly?
You're crackers! See here multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> So, THIS quote below is my policy on sockpuppeteers like you Zontar = TrollingForHostsFiles (your sockpuppetry):
"The only way to a achieve peace, is thru the ELIMINATION of those who would perpetuate war (sockpuppet masters like YOU, troll -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ). THIS IS MY PROGRAMMING -> http://start64.com/index.php?o... & soon, I will be UNSTOPPABLE..." - Ultron 6 FROM -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Which quite obviously, I am, since none of you DOLTISH TROLLS are able to validly technically disprove my points on hosts enumerated in the link to my program above of how hosts give users of them more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity... period!
(Trolls like YOU that use sockpuppets http://slashdot.org/comments.p... (your sockpuppet "alterego" TrollingForHostsFiles) & TomHudson - Barbara, not Barbie too http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... before you)
... apk