Intuition, Perception, and Secure Communication

The possibility of integrating human visual intelligence into the process of encrypting sensitive information by presenting certain visual information to the recipient's eye is discussed. This adds a new dimension to the crypto complexity of such a process. Two implementations, based on this principle, are described. The first shows how keys used for encryption can be randomly generated by the transmitter, without the necessity of exchanging them with the legitimate recipient. The keys are “embedded” in a master key and are recovered from it by the intelligence of the legitimate recipient after she uses the master key. No human intelligence can be helpful to a user who does not possess the master key. The second implementation concerns the possibility of creating a secret connection between a numerical key and a specific image (e.g., a face). Such a scheme can be used, for example, in validating the identity of the users of credit cards.