A covert authentication and security solution for GMOs. Issue 1 (December 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mueller, Siguna; Jafari, Farhad; Roth, Don
• Is Part Of: BMC bioinformatics. Volume 17:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 8
• Publication Date: 2016-12
• Subjects: GMO security -- Limits of watermarking -- Zero knowledge proofs -- Verifiable encryption for GMO; Bioinformatics -- Periodicals; Computational biology -- Periodicals; 570.285
• DOI: 10.1186/s12859-016-1256-6
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1471-2105

Abstract

Abstract Background Proliferation and expansion of security risks necessitates new measures to ensure authenticity and validation of GMOs. Watermarking and other cryptographic methods are available which conceal and recover the original signature, but in the process reveal the authentication information. In many scenarios watermarking and standard cryptographic methods are necessary but not sufficient and new, more advanced, cryptographic protocols are necessary. Results Herein, we present a new crypto protocol, that is applicable in broader settings, and embeds the authentication string indistinguishably from a random element in the signature space and the string is verified or denied without disclosing the actual signature. Results show that in a nucleotide string of 1000, the algorithm gives a correlation of 0.98 or higher between the distribution of the codon and that ofE. coli, making the signature virtually invisible. Conclusions This algorithm may be used to securely authenticate and validate GMOs without disclosing the actual signature. While this protocol uses watermarking, its novelty is in use of more complex cryptographic techniques based on zero knowledge proofs to encode information.