New Cryptography Method Promising Perfect Secrecy Is Met With Skepticism

(SpectrumIEEE) A recent research paper has attracted both interest and skepticism for describing how to achieve perfect secrecy in communications by using specially-patterned silicon chips to generate one-time keys that are impossible to recreate.
The method was developed by an international team of researchers based at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia and Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, along with the Center for Unconventional Processes of Sciences in California.
Most attempts to achieve perfect secrecy have focused on the development of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. Such QKD systems rely on the principles of quantum physics to securely distribute digital keys around the world. Instead of relying on quantum physics to make their digital keys secure, Fratalocchi and his colleagues use chaotic light states to safeguard the secrecy of the keys.
Several independent experts in cryptography and physics expressed either caution or outright skepticism about whether this approach can truly achieve perfect secrecy cryptography for practical use.
Fratalocchi described the new approach as being compatible with many different authentication techniques, including those proposed for QKD systems. “Our system is very versatile and [also open] to different integrated authentication schemes beyond these, but I am not authorized to disclose any of them as they are part of present applications we are currently developing,” Fratalocchi says.