Using the 3D Protein Structure as Key to Encrypt Images

Abstract

In the digital world, information is exposed anytime, anywhere, to everybody, hence itsprivacy is a crucial matter. No matter how complicated the encryption algorithm is, itrequires a strong and hard-to-break encryption key. Since the three-dimensional proteinsequence structures are usually highly conserved, even better than DNA sequences, thiswork presents an innovative scheme for implementing the protein sequence andstructural to build protein data tables that are then used to generate extremely strongencryption-keys. An image-encryption scheme designed to implement such encryptionkeys is developed and produced compatible security strength with existing encryptionschemes. Prototype experiments resulted in an average normalized mean absolute errorof 66.84%, an average peak signal to noise ratio of 6.85 dB, and comparable entropywith other cryptosystems. The obtained results make this scheme a promising colorimage protection technique for various applications.