Optical Cryptanalysis Method Using Wavefront Shaping

Optical techniques for information security have drawn a lot of attention in recent years. The development of cryptanalysis strategies will also have a positive promotion for the cryptosystems themselves. However, most of the present publications on cryptanalysis of optical cryptosystems are focusing only on theoretical analysis but not on experimental verification. In this paper, a practical optical cryptanalysis method using wavefront shaping is proposed. Considering that the confusion and diffusion of information in the optical cryptosystem are actually caused by scattering effect of random phase mask(s), the proposed method employs a point source function and the feedback-based optimization algorithm, which can obtain an equivalent key of the optical cryptosystem. In such a way, the confusion and diffusion of the random phase mask(s) in the cryptosystem could be removed successfully. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time the attack strategy from the perspective of wavefront shaping can be seen, and one of the biggest advantages is that it could get an equivalent key of the cryptosystem without deducing its original keys.