Could Our Software be Unhackable?

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A team from ULCA and MIT recently came to very interesting results. Namely, they offer hope that encryption could protect not just an output, but an entire program. Too good to be true, ha? This new method of program obfuscation could lead to ultra-secure software that keeps your personal information safe from potential attackers.

The idea of obfuscating a program has been around for decades. But, the security and hacking communities have been able to defeat all these measures. Cryptographic experts have long been tinkering with stronger approaches, but it nothing happened until now.

Cryptographers have been chasing the idea of a so-called “black box obfuscator” for years. The idea is that any program passed through the black box would be so fundamentally garbled that no one would be able to figure out how it worked or what secrets it might hold — only inputs and outputs would be visible, which is exactly what you want. This method could make communications almost completely secure.

Breaking the encryption on future electronic devices might not be as easy as it was before. The obfuscator is still not ready for real world use. We have to wait until this solution arrives at our computers. It’s still a very big step for cryptography.