Asymmetric Key Encryption using Genetic
Chh Shahu, Girish R. Naik · 2014
Genetic Algorithm (GA) is an invaluable tool for solving optimization problems due to its robustness. It does not break even if the inputs are changed slightly or in the presence of a reasonable noise. GA offers significant benefits over other optimization techniques in searching a large state space or n-dimensional surface. In todays information age information sharing and transfer has increased exponentially. With the ever increasing growth of multimedia applications security has become an important issue in the communication of text and images. Encryption has extensive applications in preserving confidentiality of data in Internet applications. With the popularization of Internet and exponential increase in e-commerce transactions security has become an inevitable and an integral part of any e-commerce application. Data integrity, confidentiality, authenticity, non-repudiation have gained tremendous importance and have become important components of information security. There are many risks involved in communication of plain text over Internet. Cryptography is a technique of encoding and decoding messages so that they cannot be interpreted by anybody except the sender and the intended recipient. In this paper we have made an attempt to exploit the randomness involved in crossover and mutation processes for generating a asymmetric key pair for encryption and decryption of messages. The number of crossover points and number of mutation points together with permutation factor and random byte to be used in the generation of a private key dictate the length of the secret key and hence the strength of the algorithm. In the current work we have employed four crossover points, three mutation points and a single random byte and a permutation factor. The former three parameters are in the range 0-15 whereas the last parameter is generated in the range 1-7. For uniformity each parameter is represented using 4 bits. Hence the length of the key is 36 bits. The algorithm is further strengthened by making it difficult to break by permuting the asymmetric key by a predefined permutation factor agreed upon by both the sender and the intended receiver. The randomness together with permutation makes the algorithm robust and hard to break. Finally, the algorithm is implemented in Java and applied for the encryption and decryption of a text file and a Word Document. The methodology is general and can be applied to any file for secure transmission of data.