Michael Rabin explains how secret messages can be embedded in rapidly moving streams of random digital bits in ways that cannot be decoded even with unlimited computing power. It is, he says, the first provably secure coding system ever developed. Staff photo by Kris Snibbe |
Code conquers computer snoopsOffers promise of 'everlasting' security for sendersApril 26, 2001"The ingenuity of man cannot invent a code that the ingenuity of man cannot break," wrote storyteller Edgar Allan Poe, who was also an amateur cryptographer. But this is no longer true, according to Harvard researcher Michael Rabin. "All existing codes cannot be proven to be unbreakable, but for the first time we have a mathematical proof that an encryption method is [unbreakable]," he claims. "It provides everlasting security." The backbone of the code consists of a device that generates a stream of random bits of information at a prodigious rate. Anyone can receive this information, but the transmission rate is so high that storing all of it is technically unfeasible. Even if it becomes feasible, the cost of storing the random bits in the hope of cracking the code later would be prohibitive. |
