New method to protect personal data.

Companies and organizations that keep sensitive information of millions of Americans have become attractive targets for hackers in recent years, causing millions of dollars in lost business and causing misery for countless customers. But now Amit Sahai, a UCLA associate professor at Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, and his colleagues are devising a new data protection method that they hope will make news. Hackers have to give up.

Along with Brent Waters, a computer student and Jonathan Katz of the University of Maryland, Sahai has devised a mathematical system known as functional coding that will not only simplify coding. data in servers will also allow intuitive data access and this makes it more difficult for hackers to access sensitive information, but it is easier for programmers to protect confidential information.

Although this method is not yet available, it has received great attention from the data security community. Research was introduced at the conference in Istanbul.

In that conference Sahai and colleagues said that the biggest problem in information security today is that the world relies on reliable servers to store and secure data.

Sahai said 'This reliable server is a simple and easy to implement model. Information is stored in the server and the server is responsible for deciding who will have that data. Because of the simplicity of programming, these servers become popular and are the main goals'.

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According to the authors, another problem with such servers is the tendency to replicate data on a large scale.

Waters says ' To create power and availability, data is stored on a few trusted servers like copies. If a server fails, another machine can be accessed. There is a compromise between availability and safety of data storage. The more complex the server, the more targets there are for hackers. '

According to an FBI 2007 analysis, Internet crimes have caused US business to lose $ 67 million annually, including direct costs for repairing compromised systems. TJX, the parent company of the discount clothing chain TJ Maxx and Marshalls, revealed that during the past 18 months, hackers stole 45.6 million credit card numbers and information. Other sensitive customer information. Of the two Americans, a personal file is stolen.

Sahai said coding is considered a branch of both mathematics and computer science and is closely related to information theory, computer safety and technology. While encryption technology has long been prominent, data encryption and deciding how to allow access to hundreds or thousands of people are still a problem.

He said, "Thinking about the current encryption as a key and a key. The data is locked and to allow more people to access it, you need to make many copies of the key. About 10,000 people need to access a file, so you make 10,000 copies of the key. With millions of files and thousands of keys for a file, you can imagine how complicated it is. The more complicated to manage information. So even though we have had strong coding techniques for decades, it has not been used correctly. '

The study's new function encryption method allows a programmer to set his or her characteristics for information. The math system will produce an encrypted file that only those who match the characteristics can decode. Complex systems that manage multiple keys are now simplified and servers keep encrypted information that servers themselves cannot read. Information is like nonsense for hackers.

In addition, the new mathematical system that allows personalized keys means that only one key is needed to open all the information available to that individual.

Sahai said it is a key initiative in the system. We have this mathematical method to randomize personalized keys so that your personal key does not depend on the properties you have for example your name.

The system minimizes what a hacker can do. If he is a member, he restricts himself with the access he has and because the keys are personalized, finding out who accessed and brought the information out first became easy. than.

Sahai and Waters are regarded as the founders of functional coding. Sahai recently received the prestigious Okawa research grant.

Sahai said, "Some of the work for this project is underway and is really being collaborated into research systems. It is about to come true. Brent and I have been able to apply for the patent. Instantly start work and have been bought by a company. Certainly the US Army and Security Agency are also interested in this work. '

According to Waters ' Our purpose is to re-consider which encoding. For years, people have a rigid look at coding. What we hope to do is show people how we can make much more powerful and simpler systems by changing the way we think. Finally we hope to remove complex components and make simpler ones that are safer and profitable. "

In addition to appearing at the Eurocrypt conference, the study will appear in the next issue of the Journal of Cryptography.