Abstract
In today's world, sensitive information like secret message, financial transaction, medical report, personal information is transferred over public communication channel. Since the advancement of communication begins, data security becomes a massive problem. The increasing rate of eavesdropping over communication channel leads the introduction of cryptography algorithm for data transmission. Different traditional cryptographic technique is adopted worldwide for protected data transmission. The recent advancement on this field is DNA based cryptography. This chapter describes the application of DNA as computational tool after the exposure of its capability was discovered by Leonard M. Adleman in 1994. Its random nature also helps the cryptography algorithm to become unbreakable. Conventional cryptography methods are sometimes susceptible to attack by the intruder. Therefore the idea of using codon based DNA as a computational tool is used in this cryptography method as an alternative method that fetches new hope in communication technology.
TopIntroduction
Learning new technologies for secure data transmission has very essential implication to us. Technology regularly looks for novel ways of maintaining and resting declare to information. Over number of years, DNA computing has confirmed its efficiency as a programming method for the training set that controls and develops life. Its efficiency and tendency for fixing complicated, extremely related computational problems are also been confirmed. The capability to cover up, watermark, and explanatory information in this method is visibly significant.
Nowadays, genetics and molecular biology are intensely investigated areas with significant quantities of intangible property. Educational and professional organizations may experience more relaxed performing many years expensive research to identify and recombine that gene accountable for some important compound, if there was a handful of path to include an impressive work to determine their participation and declare the performance. The characteristics of DNA are of this kind that, once the actual perform of identifying and determining is done, duplicating is simple.
Furthermore, it is established the DNA has important computational energy to execute billions of similar functions. This area is still in developing phases but DNA processing is already being paid a lot of attention, not only for uniqueness of the complete factor, except in theory, it does factors in days or hours that the present electronic computer systems cannot do in a life-time. There is already a lot of interest to watermarking electronic circuits and alternatives created by electronic computer systems. It appears helpful to regard as the same types of factors with respect to DNA.
DNA computing is basically a programming method. Just similar to a RAM or hard drive, DNA lengths contain details which can be considered and duplicated. On the other hand, DNA contains a series of four nucleic acids, such as, Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Cytosine (C) and Guanine (G) rather than a binary reflection of ones and zeroes, which are allocated for individual knowing. These four nucleotides are used to scribe binary details. Ongoing the example, concealing a key concept in a binary series can be achieved by including the concept and improving the dimension the series as a whole, and by changing some section wisely so that the information is not changed perceptibly or functionally. To include this type of concept, no one will randomly add or intersperse details. It needs a finish knowing of the unique concept and the equipment that procedures it. In the same way, one would not thoughtlessly modify a series of nucleotides basically to accomplish a hiding mechanism.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Codon: A series of three adjoining nucleotides form a triplet on a chain of DNA or RNA strand that establishes the introduction of a particular amino acid within a polypeptide sequence during the protein synthesis phase or indicate the termination of protein synthesis. DNA codon is generated with the group of any three nucleotides from Adenine (A), Cytosine (C), Guanine (G) and Thymine (T); whereas in RNA codon Thymine is replaced by Uracil (U).
DNA Cryptography: Cryptography is a technique to conceal information from an unauthorized entity. The plain text or original message is transformed into cipher text or secret coded message. This transformation can be done in two basic ways. In first process the plain text is transformed into cipher text by encrypting one bit at a time called stream cipher technique. On the contrary, in block cipher technique, one block of character is encrypted at a time. DNA cryptography is a new technique to hide data from unauthorized access with the help of DNA. DNA has huge computing power and enormous parallelism. DNA also has massive storage capacity.
Private Key Cryptography: Private key cryptography is a cryptographic technique where only one key is used to encrypt the plain text and the same key is used to decrypt the corresponding cipher text. This technique is also known as Symmetric key cryptography or Secret key cryptography. Both sender and receiver are agreed upon sharing the same key for encryption and decryption process prior to the commencement of the secure data transmission. The fundamental problem of this technology is key distribution strategy.
DNA Primer: DNA primer is set of short chain of nucleic acid with 10 base pairs generally. It initializes the DNA synthesis process. It also plays an important role in DNA replication method as it can include new nucleotides to the available thread of DNA during the DNA polymerases phase where enzymes initiate the process.
Symmetric Key Algorithm: Symmetric key algorithm is a technique that utilizes the same key for both encrypting the plain text and decrypting the cipher text. Both sender and receiver are required to agree upon sharing the key. The distribution of key is the main drawback of this algorithm.
DNA Chip: A DNA Chip is commonly known as a DNA microarray or Bio chip, which is a set of several tiny DNA spots connected to a hard surface. DNA chip is used to determine the level of expression from a huge number of genes concurrently. DNA chip is microchips that can searches and distinguishes DNA from the sample of half of DNA double helix.
Public Key Cryptography: It is a cryptographic protocol where two distinct keys are used for encryption and decryption process. It is also known as Asymmetric key cryptography. Key distribution centre plays an important role in this technique. Each recipient is provided a pair of keys. The key used for encryption process is private to the sender and the key used for decryption process is public to the others.
Three-Step Cryptography: It is a cryptographic technique where the plain text is encrypted to form corresponding cipher text in three phases, hence the name. In the first step, the plain text is transformed into the chain of DNA sequence. In the second step, the complementary rule is applied on the obtained DNA sequence to enhance the complexity. At third step, the indexes of each couple of nucleotides are removed with the help of referred DNA sequences. Precisely, the same DNA sequence has to be used in the corresponding decryption process.