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Journal of the Optical Society of America A

Introducing secure modes of operation for optical encryption

Thomas J. Naughton, Bryan M. Hennelly, Tom Dowling

Published Sep 25, 2008• 66 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We analyze optical encryption systems using the techniques of conventional cryptography. All conventional block encryption algorithms are vulnerable to attack, and often they employ secure modes of operation as one way to increase security. We introduce the concept of conventional secure modes to optical encryption and analyze the results in the context of known conventional and optical attacks. We consider only the optical system "double random phase encoding," which forms the basis for a large number of optical encryption, watermarking, and multiplexing systems. We consider all attacks proposed to date in one particular scenario. We analyze only the mathematical algorithms themselves and do not consider the additional security that arises from employing these algorithms in physical optical systems.

DOI
10.1364/josaa.25.002608

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This Letter proposes an optical encryption technique that disguises the information with modular arithmetic concepts and time-varying noise components that are unknown to the receiver. Optical encryption systems that use these techniques produce a nondeterministic system response, as well as noise like image data that can easily be generated with ordinary spatial light modulators. The principle of this technique is demonstrated for the double random phase encoding (DRPE) method. The conventional DRPE method has major vulnerabilities for Dirac signal and plain signal attacks, making them impractical for secure encryption. It is shown that the proposed encryption technique provides a robustness against these types of attacks, allowing optical DRPE to be employed in secure encryptions. Moreover, applications of this Letter are not limited to DRPE alone but can also be adopted by other optical encryption techniques such as fractional Fourier transform and Fresnel-transform-based techniques.
Optical information security techniques are developed at a fast pace over the past two decades. In the present scenario, where enormous amount of data is being exchanged, information security plays an important role in protecting the information/data from unauthorized use/access. In this context, securing information using optical means has become relevant, given the suitable features of speed and multiple degrees of freedom that optical cryptosystems offer. Asymmetric cryptosystems have been introduced as an upgrade over the conventional double random phase encoding technique and they show resistance towards the known-plaintext attack. This paper reviews the symmetric and asymmetric cryptosystems and their attack analysis.
In conventional symmetric encryption, it is common for the encryption/decryption key to be reused for multiple plaintexts. This gives rise to the concept of a known-plaintext attack. In optical image encryption systems, such as double random phase encoding (DRPE), this is also the case. With optical encryption, if one knows a plaintext-ciphertext pair, one can carry out a known-plaintext attack more efficiently than a bruteforce attack, using heuristics based on phase retrieval or simulated annealing. However, it is more likely that an attacker will find an imperfect encryption/decryption key using such heuristics. Such an imperfect key will work for the known plaintext-ciphertext pair, but not an arbitrary unseen plaintext-ciphertext pair using the original key. In this paper, we illustrate the problem and attempt to characterise the increase in security it affords optical encryption.
In the field of optical information security, the most attractive work is the so-called double-random-phase encoding encryption scheme proposed by Javidi. However, the security of this cryptosystem has not been analyzed thoroughly from the point of view of cryptoanalysis. In this article, the weakness of Javidi's optical security system is carefully analyzed with a known-plain text attack. It is shown that the double-random-phase encoding encryption scheme is a linear symmetric block cipher cryptosystem and its linearity opens avenues of attacks. Under the known-plaintext attack, attacker can obtain the phase key(s) in the input plane using the typical phase retrieval algorithms and subsequently deduce the phase key(s) in the Fourier domain easily. In addition, an optical implementation of known-plain text attack is also proposed.
In this paper, we analyze the security of the classical double random phase encoding (DRPE) technique in Fourier domain, as well as its extended schemes in Fresnel and fractional Fourier domains. These schemes are resistant to bruteforce attacks, for their large key spaces. However, due to the linearity property of their encryption transformations, they are vulnerable to other attacks, such as chosen-plaintext attack and known-plaintext attack. We successfully break each of the three encryption schemes with the help of a certain quantity of plaintext-ciphertext pairs. Each attack is validated by computer simulations. The cryptanalysis indicates that, to minimize the risks, it is recommendable to introduce nonlinear operations to optical encryption systems.