Paper 2025/634

Cryptography based on 2D Ray Tracing

Abstract

We introduce a novel symmetric key cryptographic scheme involving a light ray's interaction with a 2D cartesian coordinate setup, several smaller boxes within this setup, of either reflection or refraction type and $1^{st}$, $2^{nd}$ or $3^{rd}$ degree polynomial curves inside each of these smaller boxes. We also incorporate boolean logic gates of types XOR, NOT-Shift and Permutation which get applied to the light ray after each interaction with a reflecting or refracting polynomial curve. This alternating interaction between Optical gates (polynomial curves) and Non-optical gates creates a complex and secure cryptographic system. Furthermore, we design and launch customized attacks on our cryptographic system and discuss the robustness of it against these.

Note: Version 2 : Addition of some extra descriptions about the Key and Ciphertext, corresponding figures in the Appendix as well as some additional points about the precision of the system (although in short), that were missing in Version 1 of the Preprint (submitted earlier and published by Easychair in 2024).