Boffins show off light-speed encryption
US computer scientists are preparing to unveil details of a technique that sends secret messages over public fibre-optic networks by hiding the transmission in background interference.
Bernard Wu and Evgenii Narimanov of Princeton University will detail their technique for "inexpensive, widespread and secure" transmission of confidential and sensitive data at this week's annual meeting of the Optical Society of America.
The system is based on hardware-oriented encryption, using the properties of an optical-fibre 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.