Posted on 10/10/2006 11:15:52 AM PDT by Teflonic
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 -- A new technique sends secret messages under other people's noses so cleverly that it would impress James Bond--yet the procedure is so firmly rooted in the real world that it can be instantly used with existing equipment and infrastructure. At this week's annual meeting of the Optical Society of America in Rochester, N.Y., Bernard Wu and Evgenii Narimanov of Princeton University will present a method for transmitting secret messages over existing public fiber-optic networks, such as those operated by Internet service providers. This technique could immediately allow inexpensive, widespread, and secure transmission of confidential and sensitive data by governments and businesses.
Wu and Narimanov's technique is not the usual form of encryption, in which computer software scrambles a message. Instead, it's a more hardware-oriented form of encryption--it uses the real-world properties of an optical-fiber network to cloak a message. The sender transmits an optical signal that is so faint that it is very hard to detect, let alone decode.
The method takes advantage of the fact that real-world fiber-optics systems inevitably have low levels of "noise," random jitters in the light waves that transmit information through the network. The new technique hides the secret message in this optical noise.
In the technique, the sender first translates the secret message into an ultrashort pulse of light. Then, a commercially available optical device (called an optical CDMA encoder) spreads the intense, short pulse into a long, faint stream of optical data, so that the optical message is fainter than the noisy jitters in the fiber-optic network. The intended recipient decodes the message by employing information on how the secret message was originally spread out and using an optical device to compress the message back to its original state. The method is very secure: even if eavesdroppers knew a secret transmission was taking place, any slight imperfection in their knowledge of how the secret signal was spread out would make it too hard to pick out amidst the more intense public signal.
Although the researchers have made public this transmission scheme, and the components for carrying it out are all available, lead author Bernard Wu does not think this technique is being used yet.
"As the method uses optical CDMA technology, which is still undergoing significant research, I don't think any government or corporation is implementing this technique yet," Wu says.
While Wu foresees that government and businesses would have the greatest use for this technique, consumer applications are possible, he says. For example, consumers may occasionally transmit sensitive data via fiber-optic lines for a banking transaction. "This would not be a primary transmission scheme one would employ 24/7, as the price for enhanced security is a lower transmission rate," says Wu. Yet, since consumers send encrypted information to banks only intermittently, "the stealth method is practical" for that purpose, he says.
You can be sure al-Qaeda is reading up on it.
It's is just spread-spectrum applied to optical.
Unless they own the electronics on both ends of the fiber, this knowledge wouldn't do anyone any good.
Perhaps not immediately, but given time and breakthroughs...
Somewhere, somehow, this innovation will tie back to porn...it often seems to...
Agreed. They will need fiber throughout the entire network in which the message travel. In my opinion, architecting a more appropriate public key infrastructure would make more sense.
I would think you would need the cooperation of the cable guy (company).
Most optical transmissions end up or start out as electrical signals that need conversion to optical and then back.
Uh huh.... all I'm saying is: for now. let's look again in 5 years or 10 years and see if it's commonplace.
Given the way message packets are transmitted over the Net today, I would guess it will be a while before this technology is universally applicable.
Somewhere there is an NSA tech rolling on the floor laughing as he sits in his cube monitoring the seventh generation version of this hardware....
Dude, if that is a picture of your lady.... your are very blessed!
Why would Islamics spend all those resources on such an esotric means of communication when they can just go to the Mosque and make their plans in plain language?
You have to give them some credit for ROI (return on investment.) I mean they brought down the WTC with a couple of razor blades.
I can't see the tower, the noise is too loud.
Or just have multiple people log into the same email account, and leave messages in draft form for others to view?
Yeah, this type of technology is of interest to people who want secure links but rent their fiber from someone else. Since they can't be sure the fiber isn't being tapped if it is out of their control, they want end to end security. Hence this additional method, beyond encryption. It's stealth on top of encryption.
I'll bet them things keep her warm during those cold Canadian winters.
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