The project focuses on a device that is fundamental in many fields of Science, Technology and Entertain-ment. This device is called random number generator (RNG) and, as the name says, it provides random numbers. Random numbers are essential everywhere in Science: without them wouldn’t possible perform simulations and hence find a solution to the vast majority of problems in Physics, Engineering, Biological, Economy, etc. Random numbers are essential in Information Technology: without them wouldn’t possible to communicate privately, such as mobile phone call, online transactions, Internet browsing, etc. Random numbers are essential in the entrainment industry: without them wouldn’t be possible to play video games, play bet games or create movie digital effects.
The project is about developing and testing a RNG of new generation capable of solving typical issues current RNGs present. A main problem is the fact that RNGs used for the applications listed above are just software sub-routines, programmed to give as output numbers that might look random but they are really not. In fact they have a deterministic output: once the initial state - the seed - is known, the whole sequence of numbers can be fully predicted. Quite interestingly, it is well known that such generators are not producing true randomness and for this reason, they are called pseudo-RNG, from the Greek, “false”-RNG.
Nevertheless these PRNG are extremely widely employed because they are convenient and inexpensive, as they can be implemented with some lines of code. Unfortunately, they are used in applications where unpredictability is mandatory, such as gambling, lotteries and the whole field of encrypted communications of confidential data, with major implications. For example, PRNGs can be manipulated to win lotteries or to breach encryption (http://goo.gl/7jJSKO ). For the latter, in particular, cyber-attacks reported in the last few years have exposed the vulnerability of IT systems that results from the use of PRNGs (
http://goo.gl/t1acy9(s’ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) https://factorable.net/index.html(s’ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)). At the same time, the amount of sensitive information transmitted and stored online, which needs to be encrypted, has grown exponentially, driven by new advances such as cloud storage, medical services and Internet Of Things.
This project addresses this challenge by realizing a physical RNG, i.e. a device that outputs true random numbers as obtained by measuring a physical random process. More in the detail, the project aims to realize a quantum RNG that generates unpredictable random numbers as result of measurement on a quantum optical process. The objectives are: ultra-fast generation rate, compact design, tested resiliency and unpredictability as guaranteed by the quantum randomness. With these features our QRNG could be a real competitor to PRNGs not only in terms of security but also in terms of generation speed and the ease of use.
The outcome of this project is expected to have a positive impact on the society. It is worth stressing that cybercrime and, in particular, data breaches have very negative social and economic backlashes. For example, according to the Ponemon Institute’s “2016 Cost of Data Breach Study” (http://goo.gl/9v2zsp ), an organization spends on average 4.29 million dollars to recover from a security breach. It is therefore clear the positive impact of this research: a certified QRNG strengthens the security of cryptographic protocols, thus reducing the success rate of cyber-crime attacks that, as explained before, heavily exploit the weakness of current PRNGs.
