28 May 2007
Simple Comm Technique Beats Quantum Crypto

Interesting idea, but it immediately reminded me of a wonderful quote:

Anyone who creates his or her own cryptographic primitive is either a genius or a fool. Given the genius/fool ratio for our species, the odds aren't very good.
---Bruce Schneier

An engineer at Texas A&M may have a way to exploit the thermal properties of a wire to create a secure channel. The result could be an effectively impenetrable way of securing communications, possibly outperforming quantum cryptography keys. "In their device, both the sender Alice and the receiver Bob have an identical pair of resistors, one producing high resistance, the other low resistance. The higher the total resistance on the line, the greater the thermal noise. Both Alice and Bob randomly choose which resistor to use ... Half the time ... they will choose different [resistances], producing an intermediate level of thermal noise, and it is now that a message can be sent. If Bob turns on his high resistor, and records an intermediate level of noise, he instantly knows that Alice has chosen her low resistor, in essence sending a bit of information such as 1 or 0. Kish's cipher does this many times, sending a random series of 1s and 0s that can form the basis of an encryption key, the researchers say."

(link) [Slashdot]

07:48 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Skimmed milk -- Straight from the cow

Possible, I suppose, but I find it a bit hard to believe. The reason is simple: this cows calves wouldn't survive. No fat, no energy - the equation for newborn mammals is really that simple.

But what this really highlights is that no "mad scientist" lab is required for "genetic engineering" - farmers and ranchers have been doing it for tens of thousands of years.

Herds of cows producing skimmed milk could soon be roaming our pastures, reports Cath O’Driscoll in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. Scientists in New Zealand have discovered that some cows have genes that give them a natural ability to produce skimmed milk and plan to use this information to breed herds of milkers producing only skimmed milk.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

07:42 /Agriculture | 1 comment | permanent link