Scientists have invented a new way to encrypt telephone
conversations that makes it very difficult to ‘eavesdrop’
Professor Lars Ramkilde Knudsen from DTU Compute has invented a new way to encrypt telephone conversations that makes it very difficult to 'eavesdrop'. His invention can help to curb industrial espionage.
A method ensuring that all telephone calls are encrypted and
that eavesdroppers are unable to decrypt information in order to obtain
secrets. This is a brief definition of dynamic encryption, the brainchild of
Professor Lars Ramkilde Knudsen from DTU. Together with telecommunications
businessman Kaj Juul-Pedersen, he established the company Dencrypt, which sells
dynamic encryption to businesses so they can safely exchange confidential
information over the telephone.
"Today, all telephone conversations are encrypted -- i.e. converted into gibberish -- but they are not encrypted all the way from phone to phone, and if a third party has access to one of the telephone masts through which the call passes, they can listen in," explains Lars Ramkilde Knudsen.
"And even if the conversation is encrypted -- in principle
-- it is still possible to decrypt it provided you have sufficient computer
power," he says. This is in no small part due to the fact that the vast
majority of telecommunications operators use the same encryption algorithm --
the so-called AES, the outcome of a competition launched by the US government
in 1997.
"This is where my invention comes in," he says. It
expands the AES algorithm with several layers which are never the same.
Dynamic encryption
"When my phone calls you up, it selects a system on which
to encrypt the conversation. Technically speaking, it adds more components to
the known algorithm. The next time I call you, it chooses a different system
and some new components. The clever thing about it is that your phone can
decrypt the information without knowing which system you have chosen. It is as
if the person you are communicating with is continually changing language and
yet you still understand," he says.
Because any eavesdroppers would have to decipher the encryption
key and encryption method -- and both are thrown away by the phone after each
call and replaced by a new combination -- the conversation is extremely
difficult to decrypt when dynamically encrypted. They new system can prove
hugely effective in combating industrial espionage, says Lars Ramkilde Knudsen.
Is there anyone on the line?
Industrial espionage poses one of the biggest cyber threats in
Denmark, according the the Danish Security and Intelligence Service's latest
risk assessment. Industrial espionage occurs when different players discover
and steal trade secrets such as business plans from companies, technical
know-how and research results, budgets and secret plans using phone tapping,
for example. In the USA alone, the phenomenon costs businesses around USD 100
billion every year according to a 2014 report on the subject by security firm
McAfee.
Dencrypt currently has six employees in addition to co-owner and
founder Lars Ramkilde Knudsen, who still works for DTU Compute. If everything
goes according to plan, the product will be ready for sale on 24 October 2014.
Story
Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Note: Materials may be edited for
content and length.
Cite
This Page:
Technical University of Denmark (DTU). "Private telephone
conversations: Dynamic encryption keeps secrets." Science Daily,
7 October 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141007092106.htm>.