Chosen-plaintext attack on the double random polarization encryption
Lei Wang, Quanying Wu, Guohai Situ · Optics Express · 2019
Images can be optically encrypted by random encoding in the phase, the polarization, or even the coherence of a light field. It is important for these optical encryption methods to undergo rigorous cryptanalysis. However, only phase-encoding-based encryption has been rigorously analyzed to date. In this manuscript, we demonstrate that the double random polarization encryption (DRPolE) is vulnerable to chosen-plaintext attack (CPA). We show that the keys can be retrieved if one can choose the polarization states of two plaintext images and collect the corresponding cyphertext images. Our study reveals a serious concern regarding the DRPolE that should be addressed in the design of polarization-based optical encryption methods.