DNA Crytography -Encrypting Information in Your Very Genome

DNA Cryptography! Yes, we're starting the article by repeating the title, but that just isn't a phrase you get to say very often (if you actually exist it a real world) so we're going to enjoy it as much as possible.  People are discussing how to encrypt information in your very genome, and nuclear access codes, Vin Diesel, and ninety minutes of explosions can't be far behind.

Kang Ning, of nowhere ever, puts forward this awesome idea in a recently released paper - and the author's freedom from any "credited institution" or "proper peer review" allows them to concentrate on the sheer coolness of the concept.  Unfortunately that's opposed to anything practicable, or even cryptographic.

The idea is to encrypt information in a DNA sequence which is then transcribed by an RNA messenger protein, an activity which occurs in most of the cells of your body.  So far so funky, but Ning's process relies on the use of a secret key - and it's here that the "secrecy" thing sort of stutters.  The One Time Pad technique also offers perfect privacy, and has done since 1919, if you can guarantee a (random) secret key.  With the bonus that it doesn't require bulk genetic transcription, transmission, and other techniques we haven't actually got working yet.  You can do it with a pen and paper.

That said, the idea of genetic computation is valid and one that's under serious study, with the potential for massively parallel and unconventional computations for unique problems.  It will never match the speed and capacity of silicon systems, but genetic computation has the potential to come up with utterly unexpected results.  For example: would you have put stripes on a horse to live in Africa?

In terms of secret-key-sending, quantum encryption is still the front-runner for potentially uncrackable transmission.  Which does raise the possibility of quantum-DNA-encoding, in which case we should all just give up and realise we're living in a sci-fi movie.

DNA Cryptography http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23167/