{"420481":{"#nid":"420481","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Encryption Made Easier: Just Talk Like a Parent","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEncrypting emails can be tedious, difficult and very confusing. And even for those who have mastered the process, it\u2019s useless unless the intended recipient has the correct software to decode the message. A Georgia Institute of Technology researcher has created an easier method \u2013 one that sounds familiar to parents who try to outsmart their 8-year-old child. The new technique gets rid of the complicated, mathematically generated messages that are typical of encryption software. Instead, the method transforms specific emails into ones that are vague by leaving out key words.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like when mom and dad are talking about potential vacation spots while the kids are nearby,\u201d said Eric Gilbert, the Georgia Tech assistant professor who developed the software. \u201cThey can\u2019t say or spell \u2018Disney,\u2019 or the children will get too excited. So they use other words and the meaning is implied. Instead of \u2018Disney,\u2019 they could say \u2018have you bought tickets to the \u003Cem\u003Eplace\u003C\/em\u003E yet.\u2019\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGilbert\u2019s Open Book system, a prototype that uses a Google Mail plug-in called Read Me, works the same way by substituting specific words with ambiguous ones. If the above example was an email conversation, the sender would write, \u201cHave you bought tickets to Disney yet?\u201d Open Book would change the message when it was sent. The other person would see, \u201cHave you bought tickets to (place) yet?\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe process reduces the information disclosed to eavesdroppers or computer systems that monitor online communications, while taking advantage of common ground between the participants.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs people react more with each other, they don\u2019t have to say as much to understand what is being said,\u201d said Gilbert. \u201cOpen Book uses the same technique. Even though the messages resemble typical email conversations, they\u2019re lost in the background noise of the Internet.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo test the reliability, Gilbert put together a small study of 10 people who each wrote emails to five friends, which were then transformed by Open Book. The recipients correctly deciphered the missing words or phrases 95 percent of the time. When the same vague emails were shown to strangers, only 2 percent were interpreted correctly.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe system, which isn\u2019t commercially available yet, is tailored for people who know each other. Readers cannot transform the vague email back into specific terms if they\u2019re confused and unsure of its meaning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGilbert says he\u2019s noticed more interest in encryption since Edward Snowden leaked documents about government surveillance. He thinks Open Book could be beneficial for anyone who cares to hide information online, whether it\u2019s from the government, a nosy employer or from search engines that use communications for marketing purposes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe system was presented at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2015) in Seoul, South Korea, April 18-23 (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/comp.social.gatech.edu\/papers\/chi15.openbook.gilbert.pdf\u0022\u003EOpen Book: A Socially Inspired Cloaking Technique that Uses Lexical Abstraction to Transform Messages\u003C\/a\u003E).\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"System eliminates complicated encryption software"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA Georgia Institute of Technology researcher has created an easier encryption method \u2013 one that sounds familiar to parents who try to outsmart their 8-year-old child. The new technique gets rid of the complicated, mathematically generated messages that are typical of encryption software. Instead, the method transforms specific emails into ones that are vague by leaving out key words.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"New prototype encyrpts emails, without confusing encryption software."}],"uid":"27560","created_gmt":"2015-07-02 11:00:42","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:18:52","author":"Jason Maderer","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-07-02T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-07-02T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"420421":{"id":"420421","type":"image","title":"Open Book example","body":null,"created":"1449254287","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:38:07","changed":"1475895157","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:37","alt":"Open Book example","file":{"fid":"202630","name":"gilbert-open-book.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gilbert-open-book_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gilbert-open-book_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":92089,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/gilbert-open-book_0.jpg?itok=lmgFYoRU"}},"320861":{"id":"320861","type":"image","title":"Eric Gilbert","body":null,"created":"1449245011","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:31","changed":"1475895029","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:29","alt":"Eric Gilbert","file":{"fid":"201784","name":"eric_gilbert.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/eric_gilbert.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/eric_gilbert.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":141493,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/eric_gilbert.jpg?itok=kpjFut7E"}}},"media_ids":["420421","320861"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/comp.social.gatech.edu\/papers\/chi15.openbook.gilbert.pdf","title":"Read the study"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"102261","name":"encryption"},{"id":"13342","name":"Eric Gilbert"},{"id":"131511","name":"Open Book"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"},{"id":"71901","name":"Society and Culture"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003ENational Media Relations\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-385-2966\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["maderer@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}