03-02-2010, 07:28 PM
The concept of using DNA computing in the fields of cryptography and steganography has been identified as a possible technology that may bring forward a new hope for unbreakable algorithms. Mathematicians and physicists attempt to improve on encryption methods while staying within the confines of the technologies available.
Origins of DNA Computing
DNA computing or molecular computing are terms used to describe utilizing the inherent combinational properties of DNA for huge parallel computation. Adleman put his theory of DNA computing to the test on a problem called the Hamiltonian Path problem or sometimes referred to as the Traveling Salesman Problem known as the non deterministic polynomial time problem(NP).It was taken as the Adlemanâ„¢s DNA computing test as other conventional computers cannot solve it easily.
DNA CRYPTOGRAPHY
ËœDNA-based Cryptographyâ„¢ which puts an argument forward that the high level computational ability and incredibly compact information storage media of DNA computing has the possibility of DNA based cryptography based on one time pads. Public key encryption splits the key up into a public key for encryption and a secret key for decryption and the secret key cannot be found from the
public key. Anyone can use a person's public key to send him an encrypted message, but only the person knows the secret key to decrypt it. Injecting DNA cryptography into the common PKI scenario, the researchers from Duke argue that we have the ability to follow the same inherent pattern of PKI but using the inherent massively parallel computing properties of DNA bonding to perform the encryption and decryption of the public and private keys.
with a large enough key, one should be able to thwart any DNA computer that can be built.
DNA Steganography
The principles used in the DNA steganography experiment used a simple code to convert the letters of the alphabet into combinations of the four bases which make up DNA and create a strand of DNA based on that code. A piece of DNA spelling out the message to be hidden is synthetically created which contains the secret encrypted message in the middle plus short marker sequences at the ends of the message. microdots with each dot containing billions of strands of DNA having the encoded piece of DNA are produced. If we know which markers on each end of the DNA are the correct ones which mean there must be some sort of shared secret that is transmitted previously , we cam decrypt this message.
DNA Authentication
All Olympic merchandise from shirts and hats to pins and coffee mugs were tagged with special ink that contained DNA taken from an unnamed Australian athlete. A hand held scanner is then used to scan the inked area of the clothing to determine if a piece of merchandise is authentic or not.
full report:
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