New security system is virtually uncrackable - Univ of Connecticut researcher Bahram Javidi has developed 'coded phase mask' system that relies on unique patterns of microscopic pixels - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), June, 1997

What may be the greatest advance in security technology since the invention of the padlock has applications for everything from cash, credit cards, and computers to homes, cars, and secret government installations. It also is invisible to the naked eye and nearly impossible for criminals to crack. The system, called a "coded phase mask," has been developed by Bahram Javidi, professor of electrical and systems engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs. "The potential for this technology can be quite staggering," he maintains. "It can be applied to virtually anything you want to secure, easily and cheaply."

The optio-electronic system relies on a piece of film that can be as small as a dot made by a pen. The film, though transparent to the naked eye, contains millions of microscopic pixels which, when scanned by a laser beam, produce a unique pattern. This pattern must match exactly an identical pattern stored in the scanner or it is rejected.

Unlike holograms used on credit cards, the pixel pattern can not be counterfeited or replicated by utilizing a digital scanner or high-resolution photocopier. The pixel pattern also can be combined with coded biometric information such as photographs, fingerprints, or retina scans. As a result, if someone tries to use a stolen credit card, his or her biometric information immediately will disqualify usage. If the card has been doctored with a substitute photo or fingerprint, the scanner will reject the image, even if the first phase mask is intact, because the second mask is inaccurate.

How difficult is the system to crack? Javidi says there are more than 10 to the 10,000th power states that a single phase mask code could be in. "Even if it were possible to do 100 correlations of the code per second, it would still take 10 to the 90th power years to find the code." Moreover, because the optical code can fit in a very small area, it can be applied to everything from cash to door locks to system locks inside computers to anything that needs securing.

"I don't want to say it will be impossible to crack the system, "Javidi indicates. "But the equipment to do so will be very, very expensive, and the knowledge of how to apply it is highly specialized. In other words, this is not something that can be breached by a high school genius-hacker or a clever criminal with a good computer imaging system." He estimates that some versions of the optically coded phase mask system will become available within a few years.