MEPhI: System for encoding images, video streams and digital data

Main article: Cryptography

2022: System Creation

The Laboratory of Photonics and Optical Information Processing of the Institute of Laser and Plasma Technologies of the NRNU MEPhI, under the guidance of the scientific director of the Laboratory, Professor N.N. Evtikhiev, has developed an optical-digital system for encoding images, video streams and digital data. NRNU MEPhI announced this on October 14, 2022.

Combining electronic and photon technologies is one of the leading directions in the development of information transmission and processing tools. It was here that the employees of NRNU MEPhI managed to achieve success by creating an ultra-fast and highly secure optical-digital coding system.

The operation of this system looks something like this. Anyone computer file is essentially a collection of ones and zeros. To perform optical coding of information, it is necessary to first to visualize"," or rather present the file in the form of a spatial signal, for which the so-called "space-time light modulator" is used, which looks like a small translucent or reflecting screen. On this screen, the contents of the file are displayed as a combination of dark and light points (an option for such a representation is). QR code The original algorithm optimally representing digital information in the form of a set of pixels in the developed system was created by Anna Shifrina, an engineer of the Department of Laser Physics at NRNU MEPhI. The screen is illuminated by laser radiation.

Light passing through the screen by means of the lens system enters the second modulator, on which the coding key is holographically represented and, thus, digital information sequentially receives an optical "embodiment" and is already subjected to coding in this form. At the output, the system produces an image of a set of formless spots, which are an encoded visual representation of the original information. These spots can be photographed by a digital camera (of course, this should be done with high resolution and low noise) and then transmit the photo via the communication channel to the partner without fear that it will be intercepted by third parties on the way. The correspondent in the computer must have a key to the cipher, with which he can extract the initial message from the transmitted image of formless spots by calculating. Methods of key presentation and registration of the output light distribution of the system, and the main algorithms for data recovery were developed by employees of the Laboratory of Ph.D. Vitaly Krasnov and Ph.D. Pavel Cheremkhin.

Rzrabotka NRNU MEPhI has two important advantages. First, high performance: information processing and coding can be carried out at a speed of many tens of gigabits per second. The second quality is associated with the first: the system has a very low cryptographic vulnerability, since it uses a key whose dimensions are measured in many kilobytes.

According to the head of the Laboratory, Professor Rostislav Starikov, the resistance to hacking of the developed coding system is comparable to similar indicators of quantum encryption systems - with the difference that real working systems based on quantum coding in wide practice do not yet exist due to the peculiarity of the element base used in their construction; in the developed optical system, relatively inexpensive mass-available elements are used. To test the cryptographic resistance of the system developed at NRNU MEPhI, test "hacker" attacks on it using neural network methods are specially carried out - but the development so far successfully passes the tests.

To create a new "encoder," scientists needed not only the development of mathematical algorithms, but also a good knowledge of how optical systems work, including an understanding of the nature of the distortions that "optical" information undergoes within technical systems. According to Rostislav Starikov, the development is based on ideas put forward back in the 1990s - 2000s by several research groups in the world; in particular, in Russia, the first studies in this direction were carried out in MEPhI. Indeed, it became possible to implement such systems only now that electronic and optical technologies, as well as computer technology, have reached a sufficient level of development.