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A Pseudo DNA Cryptography Method

Kang Ning

arXiv:0903.2693v1cs.CRcs.DM

TL;DR

As modern cryptography algorithms have been broken, new information-security directions are being sought. This paper proposes a pseudo DNA cryptography method based on molecular biology processes, with theoretical and experimental evidence of attack resistance and efficiency in computation, storage, and transmission.

  • Problem

    As some modern cryptography algorithms, including DES and MD5, are broken, new directions of information security are being sought to protect data.

  • Method

    The paper proposes a pseudo DNA cryptography method based on central dogma processes, producing a key file containing protein and enciphered information.

  • Results

    Theoretical analysis shows resistance to certain attacks, especially brute-force attacks, while experiments show efficiency in computation, storage, and transmission, as well as robustness.

  • Takeaways & Limitations

    The proposed method is not constrained to encryption and may support cryptographic uses including enhancements in security and speed, with extensions and variations improving applicability.

  • Takeaways & Limitations

    Because the method is new, only primitive ideas are incorporated, and partial information may allow attackers to infer information.

Abstract

from arXiv · show

The DNA cryptography is a new and very promising direction in cryptography research. DNA can be used in cryptography for storing and transmitting the information, as well as for computation. Although in its primitive stage, DNA cryptography is shown to be very effective. Currently, several DNA computing algorithms are proposed for quite some cryptography, cryptanalysis and steganography problems, and they are very powerful in these areas. However, the use of the DNA as a means of cryptography has high tech lab requirements and computational limitations, as well as the labor intensive extrapolation means so far. These make the efficient use of DNA cryptography difficult in the security world now. Therefore, more theoretical analysis should be performed before its real applications. In this project, We do not intended to utilize real DNA to perform the cryptography process; rather, We will introduce a new cryptography method based on central dogma of molecular biology. Since this method simulates some critical processes in central dogma, it is a pseudo DNA cryptography method. The theoretical analysis and experiments show this method to be efficient in computation, storage and transmission; and it is very powerful against certain attacks. Thus, this method can be of many uses in cryptography, such as an enhancement insecurity and speed to the other cryptography methods. There are also extensions and variations to this method, which have enhanced security, effectiveness and applicability.

1. Introduction

The paper motivates a pseudo DNA cryptography method because practical DNA cryptography remains constrained by laboratory requirements, computational limitations, and labor-intensive procedures. The proposed method simulates central-dogma processes and is reported as efficient and resistant to certain attacks, while remaining limited by partial ciphertext information.

  • DNA cryptography offers applications in information storage, transmission, computation, cryptography, cryptanalysis, and steganography.
  • Practical DNA cryptography remains more theoretical than practical because of high-tech laboratory requirements, computational limitations, and labor-intensive procedures.
  • The proposed method avoids real DNA computing and instead simulates transcription, splicing, and translation from the central dogma of molecular biology.
  • For information of length n, the method's brute-force attack time complexity is reported as round O(2n), and experiments show efficiency in computation, storage, and transmission.
  • Although efficient and powerful against certain attacks, partial information in the ciphertext weakens the method, making it suitable primarily as an enhancement to other cryptography methods.
  • The paper proposes extensions and variations, including multiple rounds, while noting that only primitive ideas are incorporated and substantial work remains.

2. Literature Survey

The literature survey describes DNA computing as a massively parallel, high-density medium explored for cryptography and steganography. Prior schemes use DNA strands, secret keys, distracters, hybridization, amplification, and recombinant DNA techniques, but practical deployment remains laboratory-bound and vulnerable to risk.

  • DNA computing uses DNA's combinational properties, mass storage, and parallel computation to address cryptographic and mathematical problems.
  • Prior work proposed DNA-based one-time pads and argued that compact DNA storage could support public-key infrastructure.
  • One described scheme takes plaintext DNA strands, appends randomly constructed secret-key strands, and hides the tagged plaintext among distracter strands.
  • Decryption assumes knowledge of the secret-key strands and uses hybridization-based separation, potentially combined with amplification or PCR.
  • DNA-based cryptography has also been applied to image encryption and steganography, with improved-security variants suggested in prior work.
  • Despite its parallelism and storage capacity, DNA computing is difficult to use outside laboratories and presents cryptographic risk.

3. Motivation and Method

The pseudo DNA cryptography method simulates DNA transcription, splicing, and translation without using real DNA sequences. It encodes information through intron processing and codon–amino-acid mapping, with reported efficiency and resistance to brute-force attacks but weaker protection against some plaintext and side-channel attacks.

  • Motivation and Method: The method uses mechanisms of DNA function rather than actual DNA sequences, making it a pseudo DNA cryptography approach.Its encryption and decryption process is based on the central dogma and resembles transcription, splicing, and RNA translation.
  • Motivation and Method: DNA-form information is scanned for introns, which are removed according to starting and non-continuous pattern codes before translation into mRNA and protein forms.The method uses spaced introns, whose locations and removed sequences become part of the decryption information.
  • Motivation and Method: The protein representation is translated back through codon–amino-acid mapping and reverse intron processing to recover the original binary information.Alice and Bob use intron codes, intron locations, removed spaced introns, and codon–amino-acid mapping as keys.
  • Method analysis: The method can reduce secure-channel communication because only keys are transmitted, while protein-form information can be sent publicly and is generally smaller than the original.The key size is described as proportional to plaintext size with a small ratio.
  • Method analysis: O(n) encryption and decryption are reported for the method, while brute-force recovery has overall time complexity O(2^n).The paper describes encryption as O(n), decryption as O(n), and brute-force attack complexity as approximately O(2^n).

4. Experiments and Results

The experiments implement the pseudo DNA cryptography method and evaluate its computation, storage, transmission, robustness, and attack resistance. Results report efficient and robust operation, while noting current weaknesses and representational limitations.

  • Implementation: The implementation provides sender and receiver programs that transform plaintext through simulated DNA, transcription, splicing, and translation processes.The receiver reverses these processes using information stored in a key file to recover the plaintext.
  • Implementation: The method produces an enciphered file and a key file that can be transferred through public and secure channels, respectively.The key contains process information such as introns, their locations, removed introns, and codon–amino acid mappings.
  • Experimental design: Experiments use diverse plaintext contents and four plaintext lengths increasing tenfold from an initial length of 10.The evaluation examines plaintext and ciphertext sizes, key size, and encryption and decryption times.
  • Performance results: The program handles almost all tested characters and combinations with high accuracy and efficiency, and the results describe it as robust in computation, storage, and transmission.The experiments were intended primarily to explain the method; current representations retain key redundancies and are not binary.

5. Conclusions and Future Works

The paper presents a pseudo DNA cryptography method based on simulated central-dogma processes, reporting efficiency, robustness, and resistance to certain attacks while identifying primitive-stage limitations and future extensions.

  • The proposed method simulates transcription and translation processes from the central dogma while adding artificial features.
  • Theoretical analysis and experiments report resistance to certain attacks, especially brute-force attacks, alongside efficient computation, storage, and transmission.
  • The method is described as robust and suitable for software and hardware implementation, with only four nucleotides involved in enciphering and deciphering.
  • A serious limitation is that partial information remains available, allowing attackers to infer the whole information with some effort.
  • The authors identify incomplete confusion, limited diffusion, deciphering complexity, and implementation defects as problems requiring improvement.
  • Future work includes multiple encryption rounds, modified codon-amino-acid mappings, flexible splicing rules, and applications such as message authentication and steganography.

Appendix A: Source File Names and Brief Descriptions

Appendix A lists source files for key generation, information conversion, splicing, translation, and the overall DNA encryption process.

  • Key_generation.pl generates the initial key, while Info_convertion.pl converts the input information.
  • Splicing.pl performs the splicing process, and Translation.pl performs transcription and translation operations.
  • DNA_encryption.pl represents the complete DNA encryption process.

Receiver

The receiver-side appendix lists files for reverse translation, reverse splicing, information recovery, and complete DNA decryption.

  • Reverse_translation.pl performs reverse translation on the received cipher text.
  • Reverse_splicing.pl reverses the splicing process using the received spliced information.
  • Information_recovery.pl recovers the information, while DNA_decryption.pl represents the complete DNA decryption process.

Appendix B: Some Important Source Codes

Appendix B shows that DNA encryption converts plaintext, splices the resulting DNA text, and translates it into ciphertext; decryption reverses these stages.

  • DNA_encryption.pl documents the DNA encryption process and accepts a plaintext file as its input.
  • Info_convertion.pl converts plaintext into DNA text before Splicing.pl applies the splicing process.
  • Translation.pl translates the spliced text into ciphertext using the key.
  • DNA_decryption.pl documents decryption, invoking reverse translation, reverse splicing, and information recovery in sequence.

Appendix C: Sample results

The sample results document the pseudo-DNA cryptography workflow from an initial key and plaintext through DNA conversion, splicing, encryption, and reverse translation.

  • Sample workflow: The sample begins with an initial sender key and the plaintext “We have a \"secret\"!”.These entries are identified as the initial key and plaintext in the sample files.
  • Sample workflow: The plaintext is converted into a DNA-form representation containing the sequence CAGCAGAACGGACGACCTCGCGCCAGAACGACAGAAAGAGCTATC.The DNA-form output is shown across the sample conversion entries.
  • Sample workflow: Splicing produces a sample information sequence beginning CAGCAGAACGGACGACCTCGCGCCAGAACGACAGAAAGAGCTATC.The spliced-information entry repeats the displayed DNA sequence.
  • Sample workflow: Translation produces encrypted information represented as ValSer...GlySerGlyAspSerSerPheCysArgSerGlyAla, alongside the mapping 101231050100013531055.The encrypted output and its codon–amino-acid mapping are listed together in the sample.

Receiver

The receiver uses spliced information and a standard key file containing intron-pattern data, deletion information, and codon–amino-acid mapping.

  • Receiver: The receiver-side sample includes reverse-translated spliced information beginning CAGCAGAACGGACGACCTCGCGCCAGAACGACAGAAAGAGCTATC.The entry labels this data as spliced information under Reverse_translation.pl.
  • Receiver: A standard key file generally records intron starting and pattern codes, intron locations, removed introns, and protein codon–amino-acid mapping.The listed contents define the key file’s principal categories.
  • Receiver: The removed intron is GCCCAG, while the codon–amino-acid mapping is 101231050100013531055.Both values are listed as standard key-file fields.
  • Receiver: Users can obtain intron starting and pattern codes from the initial key generator or set them manually.The passage presents both automated generation and manual selection as available sources.
  • Receiver: The sample pattern code is 1010010010, and the intron is located at position 53.The key-file entries identify the pattern code and splicing position explicitly.
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