Is this the future of encrypted communications?

[and1c]

I read about this and was so impressed I thought I ought to share it

 

Hopefully a few of you will be equally impressed with the sheer intelligence thats gone into this solution to encrypting messages

 

 

future of encryption?

[chilli]

that's quite interesting - I used to work in cryptography but we didn't use dna lol

[Thorin]

Interesting, but an overly complex solution to a non-existent problem. It would only be difficult to decipher due to the fact that Joe Public doesn't have access to a laboratory for DNA sequencing. There are only a possibility of 64 different genetic codes, once you knew the start end end sequences I suspect actually breaking the code wouldn't be too complex, but then they don't mention anything about the actual encryption algorithm used to encrypt the message.

[and1c]

Interesting, but an overly complex solution to a non-existent problem. It would only be difficult to decipher due to the fact that Joe Public doesn't have access to a laboratory for DNA sequencing. There are only a possibility of 64 different genetic codes, once you knew the start end end sequences I suspect actually breaking the code wouldn't be too complex, but then they don't mention anything about the actual encryption algorithm used to encrypt the message.

 

You seem to have missed the point?!

 

It would not matter if it the person did have a DNA sequencing laboratory.

Knowing the start and end sequences is the whole point of the encryption...effectively like a PGP Key to read PGP encrpyted messages. Only much harder.

 

I quote

The secret message DNA strand is then mixed with ordinary DNA strands of similar length. The resulting mixture is dried on to paper which can then be cut into tiny dots. Only one strand in every 30 billion contains the message, making finding the message a fiendishly difficult task.

 

"To try and identify it within that complexity, when all the strands appear absolutely identical would be, we think, virtually impossible," says Dr Taylor Clelland.

 

Currently a message is easily decrypted because the agency knows it is the message...and it is encrypted.

With this method, they wont even know where the message is.

1:30,000,000,000

[Thorin]

Currently a message is easily decrypted because the agency knows it is the message...and it is encrypted.

With this method, they wont even know where the message is.

1:30,000,000,000

 

That's nothing though, if the actual message is "encrypted" purely by mapping a specific DNA code to a letter then it's a very poor encryption. You wouldn't even need to know the start and end points, just try different combinations until you get something that makes sense.

 

All this states is that they're hiding a message in a large jumble of other information. That's nothing new, Steganography has been around for years for example. What's important is the actual encryption cipher used to encode the message.

[chilli]

I'm not sure it's really about the encryption tbh (i.e. there appears to be none and who cares), it's about hiding the data so it can't be detected.

 

i.e. think of it from a spy/espionage perspective, you don't care that the data is encrypted necessarily, just that no one can find it - one way to achieve this traditionally would be encryption, another is to hide it somehow - like stenography and you don't have to use encryption to use stenography. I can see application for this sort of thing in the future even if it's rather confined to special situations.

 

I'd not get caught up on the whole encryption thing, maybe the title of the article is a little misleading in that respect but the idea still has some merit all the same I suspect.

[DJButler]

Anybody here recognise the old "RUSTY BACON", now thats encryption sublime(or was it ridiculous).