FWD: SCIENTISTS PROPOSE NEW ENCRYPTION SCHEME

[edgarswank@juno.com (Edgar W Swank)]

SCIENTISTS PROPOSE NEW ENCRYPTION SCHEME
Two scientists at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose,
Calif.  have developed a new approach to public key cryptography
based on mathematical constructs called lattices.  The system
would be based on a particular set of hidden hyperplanes that
constitute the private key and a method of generating points near
one of those hyperplanes for the public key.  The security of the
system rests on the computational difficulty of finding the
"unique" shortest line segment (or vector) that connects any two
points in a given lattice -- a task that's fairly easy in two or
three dimensions, but much more difficult in a 100-dimensional
lattice.  The researchers are working to turn their theory into a
marketable product, and see applications in creating digital
signatures and other security and authentication schemes.
(Science News 5 Jul 97)

Edgar W. Swank   <EdgarSwank@Juno.com>
                 (preferred)
Edgar W. Swank   <cryoprez@jps.net>
                 (for files/msgs >50K)
Home Page: http://members.tripod.com/~EdgarS/index.html