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Applied Optics

Optical scanning cryptography for secure wireless transmission

Ting‐Chung Poon, Tae-Geun Kim, Kyu B. Doh

Published Nov 10, 2003• 59 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose a method for secure wireless transmission of encrypted information. By use of an encryption key, an image or document is optically encrypted by optical heterodyne scanning and hence encryption is performed on the fly. We call this technique optical scanning cryptography. The output of the heterodyne encrypted signal is at radio frequency and can be directly sent through an antenna to a secure site for digital storage to be prepared for decryption. In the secure site, an identical optical scanning system to that used for encryption is used, together with a decryption key, to generate an electrical signal. The electrical signal is then processed and sent to a computer to be used for decryption. Utilizing the stored information received from the encryption stage and the electrical information from the secure site, a digital decryption unit performs a decryption algorithm. If the encryption key and the decryption key are matched, the decryption unit will decrypt the image or document faithfully. The overall cryptosystem can perform the incoherent optical processing counterpart of the well-known coherent double-random phase-encoding technique. We present computer simulations of the idea.

DOI
10.1364/ao.42.006496

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We propose a method for secure wireless transmission of encrypted information. By use of an encryption key, an image or document is optically encrypted by optical heterodyne scanning and hence encryption is performed on the fly. We call this technique optical scanning cryptography. The output of the heterodyne encrypted signal is at radio frequency and can be directly sent through an antenna to a secure site for digital storage to be prepared for decryption. In the secure site, an identical optical scanning system to that used for encryption is used, together with a decryption key, to generate an electrical signal. The electrical signal is then processed and sent to a computer to be used for decryption. Utilizing the stored information received from the encryption stage and the electrical information from the secure site, a digital decryption unit performs a decryption algorithm. If the encryption key and the decryption key are matched, the decryption unit will decrypt the image or document faithfully. The overall cryptosystem can perform the incoherent optical processing counterpart of the well-known coherent double-random phase-encoding technique. We present computer simulations of the idea.
We propose a new method called modified optical scanning cryptography using Fresnel telescope imaging technique for encryption and decryption of remote objects. An image or object can be optically encrypted on the fly by Fresnel telescope scanning system together with an encryption key. For image decryption, the encrypted signals are received and processed with an optical coherent heterodyne detection system. The proposed method has strong performance through use of secure Fresnel telescope scanning with orthogonal polarized beams and efficient all-optical information processing. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by numerical simulations and experimental results.
Abstract Optical encryption techniques in over the last 10 years have become more important in the area of optical information processing. Several applications, including online payments, medical or biometric image storage or transmission, private military applications, police identification techniques, online banking platforms, governmental services, identity (ID) cards, etc., are only a few examples. Require special and reliable security in the transmission and storage of images. Since digital picture information may be readily accessed by hackers via transmission over the Internet or other communication channels, the issue of photos with unlawful usage is becoming more and more severe. A more effective and secure means of communicating images may be offered via optical encryption. The encryption mechanism and keys are needed at the receiver side in order to decrypt the original optical data. Picture security becomes a highly important subject in communication science as a result of network growth and rising need for image transmission. There are several security issues with picture data, including forgery detection and illegal access. The most straightforward method of picture protection is to encrypt it as text. The traditional text encryption algorithms are inappropriate for picture encryption because of the high correlation present in image data. Over the last two decades, a number of optical approaches have been proposed for photo encryption, with the specific advantage of processing two-dimensional (2D) image data in parallel conduction mode. Therefore, we are doing an extensive investigation on optical image encryption in this work.
Optical systems as information processing systems have become quite impressive recently in optical image encryption and watermarking. Benefits of optical systems over the electronic counterparts are that optical processing provides the maximum number of degrees of freedom, and that optical encryption is ideal for information stored in holographic media. Various schemes have been proposed in the last decade. In this article, we review the recent progress and patents in this field, and point out some challenges that might lead to practical optical information security systems Keywords: Double random phase encoding, holography, information security, Optical encryption, phase retrieval, Optical systems, multidimensional information s, spatial coherence, polarization, Optical image encryption, cryptosystem, discrete fractional fourier transform, encoding technique, micro-optics system, decryption method
The growing awareness of the vulnerability of information transmitted on communication systems within the government, military and commercial sectors, has stimulated a number of areas of research within the optical community to design optical hardware encryption systems providing inherent immunity to espionage techniques. This paper describes a hardware optical encryption technique that utilises off the shelf telecommunication equipment and negates the necessity for an independent key distribution system with respect to the data transmission system, as is common with alternative encryption system implementations. This method also lends itself easily to fiber optic or free space communication and is applicable within any optical waveband. The encryption-decryption of the optical signal is achieved through low coherence optical interferometry. This requires the instantaneous processing and analysis of the signal, optically, to retrieve the relevant optical phase information hidden in the transmitted optical noise. This technology allows an authorised user to transmit encrypted information at a high data rate securely, while maintaining opaqueness to an unauthorised observer that data transmission is occurring. As the instantaneous optical field properties of the signals present in the system are essential to the optical encryption - decryption process, the system is inherently protected against electronic recording and advances in computational decryption algorithms. For organisations wishing to protect sensitive data and levels of communication activity these are highly desirable features.
An optical image encryption technique based on compressive sensing using fully optical means has been proposed. An object image is first encrypted to a white-sense stationary noise pattern using a double random phase encoding (DRPE) method in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Then, the encrypted image is highly compressed to a signal using single-pixel compressive holographic imaging in the optical domain. At the receiving terminal, the encrypted image is reconstructed well via compressive sensing theory, and the original image can be decrypted with three reconstructed holograms and the correct keys. The numerical simulations show that the method is effective and suitable for optical image security transmission in future all-optical networks because of the ability of completely optical implementation and substantially smaller hologram data volume.
We present a new method to secure information based on digital optics in this paper. The input image to be encrypted is recorded as interferograms by use of two-step phase-shifting interferometry. Before transmitting through communication channels, the interferograms are encrypted as phase codes in fractional Fourier domain by using a computer generated random phase mask. The set of fractional orders and the computer generated random phase mask form the keys to the encrypted data. With the phase shifts generated in the recording process, the original image can be retrieved from the correct decrypted interferograms successfully. Computer simulations are presented to prove its validity.