Implementation of entropically secure encryption: Securing personal health data

Abstract Entropically secure encryption (ESE) offers unconditional security with shorter keys compared to the One‐Time Pad. Here, the first implementation of ESE for bulk encryption is presented. The main computational bottleneck for bulk ESE is a multiplication in a very large finite field. This involves multiplication of polynomials followed by modular reduction. A polynomial multiplication is implemented based on the gf2x library, with modifications that avoid inputs of vastly different length, thus improving speed. Additionally, a recently proposed efficient reduction algorithm that works for any polynomial degree is implemented. Two use cases are investigated: x‐ray images of patients and human genome data. Entropy estimation is conducted using compression methods whose results determine the key lengths required for ESE. The running times for all steps of the encryption are reported. The potential of ESE to be used in conjunction with quantum key distribution (QKD), in order to achieve full information‐theoretic security of QKD‐protected links for these use cases is discussed.