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Cryptography
Context:
Indian cryptography research is rapidly evolving to address the emerging threats posed by quantum computing.
 What is Quantum Computing?
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The Basics of Cryptography
- Cryptography refers to the techniques used to convert plain text into ciphertext, ensuring that only authorised parties can decrypt and understand the message. The primary goal of cryptographic systems is to secure communication by preventing unauthorised access to sensitive information.
- Importance: Cryptography is used worldwide for securing systems like internet banking, e-commerce, and messaging.
- Historical roots: Cryptography has ancient origins, such as the Caesar cipher used by Julius Caesar in the first century BC and the efforts by Polish and British cryptanalysts during World War II to break Germany’s Enigma code.
- Modern Cryptographic Systems: These systems use mathematical algorithms and protocols to protect the confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and non-repudiation of data.
- One of the core principles of cryptography is that the process should be computationally difficult to break, making it infeasible for unauthorised parties to access sensitive data.
Key Components
- Keys: At the heart of cryptographic systems is the key, which is used to encrypt and decrypt messages. In classical systems like the Caesar cipher, the key is a simple offset, but in modern systems, it is much more complex.
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- Public-key cryptography is a widely used example, where the receiver has a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption. The security of this system relies on the difficulty of deriving the private key from the public one.
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- One-Way Functions: Cryptography often uses one-way functions—mathematical functions that are easy to compute in one direction but difficult to reverse without the key. These functions are used in encryption systems but are computationally expensive to reverse, increasing the security of encrypted messages.
India’s Role in Cryptography Research
- Indian researchers are actively working on areas such as communication complexity, proof complexity, and algebraic coding theory to advance cryptography.
- Notable institutions like IISER Pune, IISc, and RRI Bengaluru are contributing to global cryptographic research, particularly on areas like quantum-resistant cryptography (QRC), which is designed to secure systems against quantum computers.
Challenges and Research Areas
- Hard Problems: Cryptographic algorithms often rely on complex mathematical problems that are hard to solve, ensuring data remains protected. The difficulty of these problems can also increase with advancements in technologies like quantum computing.
- Complexity Theory and Cryptography: Cryptography is closely linked to complexity theory—studying how computational problems are classified based on their difficulty and the resources required to solve them. Many researchers are working to refine cryptographic techniques using complexity theory.
- Communication complexity (how much communication is required to complete a computational task) and proof complexity (the computational resources needed to prove or disprove statements) are areas of active research in India.
The National Quantum Mission and India’s Quantum Cryptography
- India’s National Quantum Mission (2023) aims to establish a quantum communication research hub, enabling secure satellite communications and quantum key distribution over long distances.
- The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to launch a satellite with quantum communication capabilities, marking a significant milestone in secure communication for India.
- Random number generation techniques, which are crucial for cryptography (such as generating private keys for encryption), are also being advanced in India. A recent study developed a method to generate true random numbers for more secure passwords and keys.
Policy and Economic Implications
- The shift towards cloud storage is increasing the need for strong encryption systems to protect sensitive data. As data breaches become more common, encryption remains a critical defence mechanism.
- The Indian government is heavily involved in funding and supporting cryptography research, with key contributions from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Department of Telecommunications.
The development of quantum-secure cryptosystems will be critical to ensuring data protection in the future, especially in light of the rise of quantum computers.
