Chosen-plaintext attack on a joint transform correlator encrypting system

We demonstrate that optical encryption methods based on the joint transform correlator architecture are vulnerable to chosen-plaintext attack. An unauthorized user, who introduces three chosen plaintexts in the accessible encryption machine, can obtain the security key code mask. In this contribution, we also propose an alternative method to eliminate ambiguities that allows obtaining the right decrypting key. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.