SCIENTISTS PROPOSE NEW ENCRYPTION SCHEME Two scientists at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. have developed a new approach to public key cryptography based on mathematical constructs called lattices. The system would be based on a particular set of hidden hyperplanes that constitute the private key and a method of generating points near one of those hyperplanes for the public key. The security of the system rests on the computational difficulty of finding the "unique" shortest line segment (or vector) that connects any two points in a given lattice -- a task that's fairly easy in two or three dimensions, but much more difficult in a 100-dimensional lattice. The researchers are working to turn their theory into a marketable product, and see applications in creating digital signatures and other security and authentication schemes. (Science News 5 Jul 97) Edgar W. Swank <EdgarSwank@Juno.com> (preferred) Edgar W. Swank <cryoprez@jps.net> (for files/msgs >50K) Home Page: http://members.tripod.com/~EdgarS/index.html