The Looking-Glass System: A Unidirectional Network for Secure Data Transfer Using an Optic Medium

• Published in: Future Network Systems and Security Vol. 670; pp. 81 - 97
• Main Authors: Oren, Gal, Amar, Lior, Levy-Hevroni, David, Malamud, Guy
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Springer International Publishing AG 2016; Springer International Publishing
• Series: Communications in Computer and Information Science
• Subjects: Computer security; Confidential networks; Encrypted data transmission; Information retrieval; Information security; Network hardware; Unidirectional systems
• ISBN: 9783319480206; 3319480200
• ISSN: 1865-0929; 1865-0937
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-48021-3_6

The Looking-Glass system is a unidirectional network for data transfer using an optic medium, base on the principle of transferring information digitally between two stations without an electric connection. The implementation of this idea includes one side encoding and projecting the information to a screen in high speed, and a receiving side, which decodes the information image back to its original form. The decoding is done using a unique algorithm. Also, in order to synchronize between the transmitter and the receiver sides a separate synchronization system base on video pattern recognition is used. This technique can be useful whenever there is a need to transfer information from a closed network – especially sensitive one – to an open network, such as the Internet network, while keeping the information in its original form, and without any fear of an uncontrolled bidirectional flow of information – either by a leakage or a cyber attack.