Unconditionally secure credit/debit card chip scheme and physical unclonable function

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel, unconditionally secure credit/debit card authentication scheme using the Kirchhoff-law-Johnson-noise (KLJN) physical unclonable function, enhancing security and privacy beyond traditional cryptographic methods.

Contribution

It introduces a KLJN-based physical unclonable function scheme for credit/debit cards, providing unconditional security against mathematical and statistical attacks.

Findings

The KLJN scheme offers unconditionally secure authentication.

Short wiring lengths enhance security and practicality.

The system provides unprecedented privacy for card applications.

Abstract

The statistical-physics-based Kirchhoff-law-Johnson-noise (KLJN) key exchange offers a new and simple unclonable system for credit/debit card chip authentication and payment. The key exchange, the authentication and the communication are unconditionally secure so that neither mathematics- nor statistics-based attacks are able to crack the scheme. The ohmic connection and the short wiring lengths between the chips in the card and the terminal constitute an ideal setting for the KLJN protocol, and even its simplest versions offer unprecedented security and privacy for credit/debit card chips and applications of physical unclonable functions.