Alice likes to keep her conversations with Bob private. Whenever she wants to talk to Bob, Alice is afraid that Eve will try to listen in. Luckily, avoiding eavesdropping is not too difficult. For instance, exchanging letters with Bob through traditional mail services already does the trick. Malicious Mallory on the other hand is much more enterprising than Eve and she does not hesitate to intercept mail. More secure communications schemes are necessary to hide information from Mallory.

This is where Luka Matic comes in. This Elektor Labs user specializes in the development of secure communication systems. He has already published two parts of his One-time Pad (OTP) based cryptographic communication trilogy in Elektor Magazine.

Articles on Secure Communications

Part one was about a True Random Number Generator, needed for creating encryption keys. The second installment showed how to use such keys to encrypt messages and send them securely to the destination. However, to decode the message, the receiver needs to have a copy of the encryption key. This chicken-and-egg paradox of securely sending encryption keys to the destination is the subject of Part 3 of the trilogy. The proposed solution is a device capable of detecting tampering with its contents when it travels to its destination.

An Interview

We called Luka Matic on Skype to ask him a few questions about secure communications. We recorded the interview (we did inform him about this first, of course). The result is this video posted on the Elektor TV channel. In the interview Luka Matic reveals how many common devices and technologies that most people never think about are in fact unsuitable for secure communications. You will also learn about techniques and methods to improve things. Have fun!