Easy Secure Photos algo to encrypt images on the cloud

Parthiv Menon

July 19, 2021

Researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a new technique called Easy Secure Photos (ESP) that encrypts photos uploaded to any cloud service like Google Photos or iCloud without making any changes to the services themselves. The encryption of photos on the cloud was a huge problem since most lcoud services were not compatible with modern cryptographic techniques, which lead to corrupted images. ESP, however, employes an image encryption algorithm whose resulting file can be compressed and still would not get corrupted. The result of the encryption by the model are three black and white files with each file encoding data about the original image's red, green, and blue data. Thumbnail images are also uploaded in the same way. The photos on the cloud will look black and white for everyone (including hackers and cloud providers) except the authorised user. ESP also works well with PNG and JPEG image formats, apart from enabling multi-device access. The new algorithmic system adds an extra layer of protection above the normal password protection for the cloud storage, according to the researchers.

Abridged fromThe Hindu