Researchers claim major cryptography advance

Two university researchers are to present a system that could greatly advance the use of cryptography in computing..

Bristol University computer science professor Nigel Smart and Dr Frederik Vercauteren from Belgium's Katholieke University Leuven will present a paper that outlines a scheme for handling and computing encrypted content.

The method improves on a 2009 encryption system from IBM, according to the researchers, and allows for the processing of 'add' and 'multiply' functions on encrypted data ciphertexts. The researchers said that the paper could push forward efforts to develop a practical system that computes fully encrypted data.