How could unbreakable encryption be used?

Curious_Student

7/28/23, 6:19 PM

I'm part of a team of students from the Vienna University of Economics, which have the task to find application fields for a new technology. The technology itself is provided by an external partner, so I do not possess a lot of technical knowledge about it. As far as I understand, it is an encryption method that is able to transfer data in a manner that is (mathematically) unbreakable - as it combines one-time-pad with other security measures - and has no back door. I have included a couple of tags of technologies I know the partner is using for this or that could describe his approach.

Now we have to find use cases where this encryption could potentially be relevant. If you can think of anything where this could be used, I would really appreciate your input. Actual uses in companies, uses in day-to-day life, uses in a specific work process - just think of it as brainstorming, really anything goes no matter how trivial or technical. Thanks a lot for your help!

145

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encryption

one-time-pad

Mikero

7/28/23, 6:40 PM

Based on your explanation, your external partner is probably selling snake-oil.

poncho

7/28/23, 7:12 PM

Since you're not in the crypto world, here is an explanation of what we mean by "snake-oil"; that is a product that is touted to solve all the user's problems, but in reality does little if any good. The term dates back to patent medicine peddlers back in the 18th century, which would sell medical panaceas to unsophisticated customers. Nowadays, we in the cryptoworld have seen a number of different vendors selling products with similar hype (and, on examination, similar uselessness) - a common theme among these are citations of "one-time-pad" (which is, in practice, practically useless).

Mikero

7/28/23, 7:56 PM

I would like to add to my totally dismissive comment above. It is possible that the appearance of snake oil is a result of legitimate cryptography being "lost in translation" since the OP admits to being unfamiliar with the technical aspects.

DannyNiu

7/29/23, 4:57 AM

Would people stop tag-spamming their posts with "post-quantum-cryptography", "zero-knowledge-proofs", and alikes which while look like appealling buzzwords, the usage of which make them look dumb?

Paul Uszak

7/29/23, 3:21 PM

Any chance that you're dealing with FinalCrypt?

Score:7

Crypto

Mikero

7/28/23, 8:14 PM

You should know that "mathematically unbreakable because it is based on one-time pad" is a huge red flag. If their algorithm "combines one-time pad with other things" then it is not "mathematically unbreakable." If they don't know this, then you are absolutely dealing with a crackpot. If it is mathematically unbreakable then it is also certainly useless, because unbreakable encryption is known to be inherently very limited. If it is not mathematically unbreakable, then in my opinion it is highly unlikely to be better than standard encryption developed through global, open standardization efforts.

Finally, in my opinion, new encryption algorithms are simply not viable for commercialization. The cryptography community builds confidence in security by open scrutiny of algorithms, not secrecy. The community will never widely adopt new cryptography that is encumbered by patents or intellectual property restrictions -- there is precedent for this (see OCB, which is arguably better than more popular AEAD schemes but was never widely adopted due to its patents, even in light of a very generous blanket license). As I mentioned above, it is highly unlikely that this new encryption has any actual competitive advantage over the state of the art. Even if it did, no one is willing to pay for an encryption algorithm.