[2428] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Holocomm: Secrecy by Delocalization
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ed Gerck)
Tue Mar 31 15:24:55 1998
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 12:55:20 -0300 (EST)
From: Ed Gerck <egerck@laser.cps.softex.br>
To: cryptography@c2.net
List:
I would like to submit for comments the announcement described in the
technical press release below. There is an HTML version available at
http://novaware.cps.softex.br/holocomm.htm
Thank you,
Ed
HOLOCOMM: Secrecy by Delocalization
Campinas, March 30th, 1998 -- Dr. Ed Gerck announced today a new
digital communication and encoding system that uses quantum
mechanical principles to provide for data privacy and reliability,
called Holocomm. As one of its main characteristics, information
encoded with Holocomm becomes fully delocalized and can be read only
with the proper decoding parameters. This affords a holographic
property: any part of the encoded information can be used to recover
the whole information to a degree.
The encoded information can be static, as in a certificate, e-mail
message, contract, etc, or dynamic, as in a real-time communication
channel.
Holocomm is neither cryptography nor steganography, even though both
share properties with it.. It is not cryptography because the encoded
information cannot be localized. It is not steganography because it
does not depend on another information to hide the original
information, while it can use another information such as an image,
if so desired. It can provide strong security as with cryptography
while keeping the data hidden as with steganography. Moreover, since
the information is delocalized but not merged, no part of it can be
removed without removing the message itself while any part of it can
reproduce the message to a degree, which has no parallel in
cryptography or steganography.
"Holocomm fully delocalizes information, while strongly encoding it.
Delocalization means that all information syntax is free from the
limitations of locality, while all information semantics is
transformed into a global property. Thus, delocalization is not a
loss of identity but an omnipresence of it, for each part of the
message. A Holocomm message is a macro quantum mechanical wave
packet, where information is not stored in specific places, like
characters in a plaintext, bits in an encrypted message, bytes in a
data packet or as a time-dependent signal in a modulated-carrier wave
system, but is effectively distributed as an indivisible property of
the wave packet as a whole. Then, documents become truly holographic
in the sense that a rather small part of a document can be verified
to afford origin authentication of the entire document. Even data
integrity authentication for the whole document can be derived from a
small sample, to a degree. Holocomm documents can also be smaller in
size than the original documents." explains Dr. Gerck.
Regarding its strong encoding techniques, Holocomm can be a carrier
for any known encryption system such as RSA, DES, Idea, Blowfish,
RC4, etc. or for its own secure quantum mixing and encoding modes.
"Holocomm can interoperate with known, tried and secure encryption
techniques while also offering new avenues for strong data privacy
that can become vitally crucial, for example, if integer
factorization suddenly becomes viable for large key sizes. Further,
as world e-commerce needs are in opposition to export controlled
cryptography, Holocomm offers secure and open alternatives -- now."
declares Dr. Gerck.
Holocomm allows several problems to be solved, that have either no
solution or only partial and difficult solutions. For example:
- diverse encodings and media: Holocomm can produce messages with any
transport encoding, such as Base-64, ASCII, binary, etc. and for any
media such as e-mail, WWW, voice, film, etc.
- resistant transport: MIME or ASCII-armor may not be necessary in
the majority of cases for e-mail because text which is privacy
encoded and/or signed in a Holocomm system can be recovered to a
large degree even when mangled by mail transport systems. Localized
errors can be compensated because the transported information is
delocalized.
- digital signature recovery: today's digital signature systems need
an integral and errorless copy of both the document and the
signature. With Holocomm, even rather small parts of a document can
allow the document's origin authentication to be verified with
negligible error, also providing for data integrity authentication of
the whole document, to a degree. This recuperates a 3D-world
property legally known as a "holograph" (not to be confused with
hologram) and which was entirely lost for digital signatures.
- digital signature legislation: by allowing the usual legal concept
of a holograph to be applied for digital signatures, Holocomm
reduces the risk of document repudiation, tampering, etc. Since the
data and its signature become securely intermingled, the signature is
not localized and cannot even be separated from the document --
making the digitally signed document akin to a document wholly in the
handwriting of the author.
- strong transparency: A Holocomm message may be strongly encrypted
and yet such encryption may be undetectable within Complexity Theory
limits, when Holocomm works in privacy-transparent mode.
- resistant encryption: a Holocomm message that uses its own quantum
encoding modes can resist tampering attempts that may try to change
it or render it unreadable or unusable.
- Intrinsic Certification: Since quantum packets can be added without
loosing their identity, Holocomm allows independent secure
multichannel messages to be transported in the same certificate or
message, offering new tools to implement the Intrinsic Certification
method being developed by the MCG -- Meta-Certificate Group. Dr.
Gerck has granted the MCG worldwide rights to apply Holocomm in the
MCG developments and APIs.
- mandatory key-escrow: Holocomm can use Intrinsic Certification to
allow independency from CAs and TTPs, thus being legally independent
of any key-escrow or key-control legislation that may be imposed on
CAs and TTPs.
- privacy encumbering: Holocomm allows its privacy modes to be
undetectable within Complexity Theory limits, thus rendering useless
any attempt to encumber privacy. The same applies for certification
encumbering, by allowing undetectable Intrinsic Certification.
- rights management: Holocomm allows a non-invasive, indelible and
secure stamp to be applied to copyrighted materials such as software,
.gif or .jpg images, text, film, music, video, voice, etc.
- e-commerce: by providing for strong document non-repudiation,
secure signatures, privacy and independent secure multichannels,
Holocomm closely resembles traditional legal documents used in
age-old commerce, which can be hand annotated and signed by several
parties, all independently targeting any desired portion of one
document, without any need to expose the document to a notary (eg, a
CA or TTP) in order to achieve security.
- product and environmental security: Holocomm can securely store
complex chemical fingerprints of products (such as crude oil) and
allow undeniable product tracing and identification. Thus,
commercial and environmental aspects of different chemicals and
products can be securely certified to combat tampering, contraband,
unidentified spillovers and environmental damage. The same can be
applied to complex animal or plant biometric-data and other identity-
or capability-related data.
- cross-delocalized data: Holocomm allows for a set of data to be
delocalized in different places and not just in one place, i.e.
cross-delocalized data. This can be useful to implement secure
fail-safe procedures because not all data have to be accessible all
the time.
- export free: Holocomm was entirely developed to be export-free for
any degree of privacy and security. It can be freely exported and
re-exported to any country in the world. Holocomm does not depend on
any other patented system.
Holocomm can be applied now to worldwide security applications.
Companies, individuals and investors are invited to contact Dr. Ed
Gerck at egerck@novaware.cps.softex.br in order to discuss proposals:
"The opportunity is now open for any interested party to lead or
participate in commercial efforts that may deploy Holocomm in
applications that can profit from origin authentication, data
integrity authentication, privacy, security, non-repudiation
properties, encryption transparency, resistant encryption,
product security, etc."
The Holocomm system can and will be fully disclosed to the public, as
its security rests on freely chosen encoding/decoding parameters with
strong computing penalties to prevent parameter-space search, not on
method secrecy. The need to follow patent legislation procedures
clearly prevents a full disclosure at this moment but a technical
summary is provided below.
REFERENCES:
Dr. rer. nat. Ed Gerck is the CTO of Novaware
(http://novaware.cps.softex.br), Coordinator of the Internet open
group MCG (http://www.mcg.org.br) that has representatives from 25
countries and visiting Professor at UNICAMP, Brazil.
The Holocomm system is derived as a combination of free-standing
and/or bound-state wave packets in a large quantum mechanical system
that works as a thermal bath, which provides for the necessary state
mixing and strongly penalizes parameter-space search. Holocomm
depends on concepts published by the author more than 15 years ago
[1] [2], when the question of how to represent quantum states in a
fully analytical form was shown to be solvable with high accuracy
also as a function of a reduced representation of the quantum
mechanical equation itself and not only as a function of a reduced
representation of the wave functions for the full equation.
[1] E. Gerck et. al., "Solution of the Schroedinger equation for
bound states in closed form", Phys. Rev. A, vol. 26, p. 662, 1982.
[2] E. Gerck et. al., "Scaling laws for Rydberg atoms in magnetic
fields", Phys. Rev. Lett., vol.50, p.324, 1983.
This document is hereby released for public information, which does
not constitute a right to use such information for any other purpose
or for a product. Republication is allowed with copyright and author
citation. The Holocomm system, and the "Holocomm" name are Copyright
(c) Ed Gerck, 1998. All rights reserved worldwide. Patent
applications reserved worldwide.
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