Israel developed ways to use soft drinks to encode and decipher confidential messages

In the near future, if you see that in the 007 film, there is a scene where Bond reads a letter from a beer or Coke. , decoding hidden messages. The study has just been published recently in the journal Nature.

Since World War I, spies have tried to find ways to hide confidential messages in seemingly innocuous things, including wax pens or what many people know is writing in lemon juice. This is called steganography - hiding messages without using data or characters.

As the case of using lemon juice as an invisible ink is a simple example of applying chemistry to steganography. People will write a message in lemon juice, then wait for it to dry and the text will disappear. However, when the temperature is high, the acid in the lemon juice will react to the sugar so Caramel turns them, forming a brown product and the words appear.

The nature of this approach is mainly based on the fluorescence ability of the molecule.

Based on this idea, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel have continued to develop measures to use chemistry to hide messages in a clever and subtle way. It is a complex set of chemical complex measures that are easily used, combining multiple steganography measures in encryption, password protection and decoding.

The nature of this approach is mainly based on the fluorescence ability of the molecule. When encountering certain chemicals, these molecules will emit light with many different wavelengths depending on what chemical is, how it reacts. By measuring the length of these wavelengths, codes can be obtained to decode the messages. At present, cryptographic molecules have been created by scientists in the laboratory but in the near future, they can apply it in familiar products like Coke, instant coffee or mouthwash.

The basic way of coding above is to assign characters with other symbols.

The basic way of coding is to assign characters using other symbols, such as using numbers to represent characters. Specifically, the message "open sesame" (open sesame), the word "open" will be encoded into:

O = 4350
P = 4650
E = 1350
N = 4050

At the same time these characters will be assigned specific light wavelengths (measured in nm units) and we will have:

O = 500nm
P = 520nm
E = 540nm
N = 560nm

Next, molecules are put into a specific chemical, such as Cola, and measure the amount of light emitted at each wavelength. And the whole process, according to scientists, can be done with simple, cheap and even handheld devices in other devices, such as watches for Bond.

On the other hand, fluorescence is measured with optional units so to get the same number of encodings and decoders, one must implement the same setting and this is considered to be an additional layer of security for this process. . Finally, one will add a special number sequence to complete the code. So if you measure 689 at a wavelength of 500nm, then add the number 4350, the final value for the letter O will be 5039.

Israeli researchers said it could be used to create fake messages.

The encryption process is available, now just transfer the numbers and fluorescent molecules to anyone you want to send the message to. These molecules can be hidden by drying and hiding in a letter for example. When the letter is received, the recipient just needs to put the letter in an accurate cola water mark, then the fluorescent light emitted is readable. If you don't know which mouthwash to decode, then the person will get the wrong values, and ultimately the letters will be completely meaningless.

Moreover, Israeli researchers said it could be used to create fake messages. That is, if you do not use the right type of cola and use mouthwash to decode (according to the example above), the person will receive a meaningful but wrong message. Now that the whole process has been successfully tested in the lab, it sounds complicated, but the volunteers who participated in the trial all said it was quite easy to use. So, if you see someone pouring coffee or soup on sheets of paper, don't laugh, they're spies!