In the past decade, data encryption researchers have turned to biology for clues to developing robust encryption algorithms and keys. This is not device or data security based on individual’s unique physical characteristics like fingerprints, retinal and iris patterns, or heart rhythms. Instead, researchers look at the human body as an information storage and processing machine and try to isolate individual components that
could be usefully applied to computer data security.
DNA provided the first biologically based model for data encryption and decryption, with roots in Leonard Adleman’s 1994 experimental use of DNA as a computational system. Today, DNA cryptography is an accepted field in data security. Researchers at Lancaster University in Great Britain introduced an encryption mechanism based on the way different human systems communicate with each other, which they described as a coupling function.
Researchers at Penn State University recently introduced another biologically based encryption system that uses human T cells. The impetus for the research was the realization that standard algorithms create one-way functions. Such functions are difficult to reverse-engineer in part because the process requires substantial computer resources. Lead researcher Saptarshi Das, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics, recognized that the advent of quantum computing would render encryption based on the cost of reverse engineering much less effective. His team looked for random biological processes — those that have no mathematical basis — to use as the basis for completely random encryption keys. T cells met this requirement.
To create an encryption key, the team photographed a solution containing T cells, created pixels on the photo and designated pixels associated with T cells “ones” and spaces “zeros.” The cells live for a long time and move constantly and randomly, generating new patterns and hence new keys. The team currently uses a sample of 2000 T cells per key. The researchers assert that their system cannot be reverse engineered even if the prospective hacker knew the key generation mechanism, rate and sampling mechanism.
Other recent research from New York University uses a similar approach, relying on the growth of islands of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) during chemical vapor deposition. Penn State graduate student Akhil Dodda pointed out the disadvantage of using nanomaterials like MoS2: they weather out of their base material and, unlike the T cells, are stationary.
According to Das, "We need a lot of keys because the population of the world is 7 billion. Each person will generate a megabyte of data every second by 2020."
The Penn State study was published in the December 2018 issue of Advanced Theory and Simulation.
For further reading:
Binary DNA Nanostructures for Data Encryption, Ken Halvorsen and Wesley P. Wong
Coupling Functions Enable Secure Communication, Tomislav Stankovski, Peter V.E. McClintock and Aneta Stefanovska
