[imagesource:deviantart]

It might sound a lot like one of those ‘TikTok facts’, but the company that is responsible for encrypting about 10% of the internet uses lava lamps to introduce real-world unpredictability into its encryptions. And it works.

Cloudfare’s head office has a wall of about 100 lava lamps that are continually recorded, with the camera taking pictures of the lava wall at regular intervals. Due to the trippy non-stop movement of the lava lamps, each picture is truly unique on a pixelated level, and this is then used to create an encryption key.

Sounds simple, and once you get past the technical details, it is. “All digital images are stored by computers as a series of numbers, with each pixel having its own numerical value,” CloudFare explained:

“And so each image becomes a string of totally random numbers that the servers can then use as a starting point for creating secure encryption keys.”

“To produce the unpredictable, chaotic data necessary for strong encryption, a computer must have a source of random data. The ‘real world’ turns out to be a great source for randomness, because events in the physical world are unpredictable. As one might expect, lava lamps are consistently random. The ‘lava’ in a lava lamp never takes the same shape twice, and as a result, observing a group of lava lamps is a great source for random data.”

In its most basic form, encryption is the scrambling of data, whether text, image, or video, in such a way that only those who sent or received it can read it. An encryption key allows you to unscramble the data.

By using 128-bit or higher keys, security experts try to make them harder to break by making them as random as possible. Computers, with their logical way of working, are not that great at creating randomness – but lava lamps are.

“As one might expect, lava lamps are consistently random. The ‘lava’ in a lava lamp never takes the same shape twice, and as a result, observing a group of lava lamps is a great source for random data.”

If you’re still a little bit perplexed, the video below explains the idea behind the lava lamps.

As retro as a lava lamp encryption may be, it never hurts to take a fresh look at how secure you are online. Since most of us do not have the skills or time to take a ‘deep dive’ into internet security services, we rely on our hosting partners at RSAWeb to keep the internet ticking over safely.

Their range of internet security and anti-virus products now also includes Bark, which helps parents monitor and control their children’s online content.

[source:ifls]