Encryption is an important part of keeping our data secure , but it’s easy to underestimate the complexity it adds to any service or device. Part of that complexity is the processing that encryption requires – a process that may not be practical on small or low-cost devices. But Google is trying to change that, with a very effective new method called Adiantum .
While encryption is in some ways simply the transformation of one set of data into another, this process is actually very complex. It requires mathematical operations, the data must be read and written, and then this process must be repeated, before the encryption is complete.
For a simple text message this is not that difficult. But if the same thing has to be done for a large amount of data, which may contain images or videos, this extra calculation increases the complexity.
Many modern smartphones and other gadgets are equipped with a special chip that performs some of the most common encryption algorithms and processes (i.e. AES), just as GPUs handle graphics calculations in games.
But what about older or cheaper phones, or tiny smart gadgets at home, that don't have the space for something like that? Just as they can't run the latest games, they may not be able to efficiently perform the latest cryptographic processes. They can still encrypt things of course, but it can take a long time for some apps to run and drain large amounts of battery.
Google, clearly interested in providing competitively priced phones, is now addressing this problem by creating a special encryption method just for low-end phones, called Adiantum.
Instead of using AES, it relies on an encryption code called ChaCha. This encryption method is highly optimized for basic binary operations, which any processor can perform quickly.
The Adiantum process does not increase or decrease the size of the payload (for example, by padding it or adding data), which means that the number of bytes that go in is the same as the number that goes out.
Of course, new encryption techniques are initially met with some skepticism by security professionals, for whom the greatest pleasure in life is proving something dangerous or untrustworthy. However, Google engineers claim that they “have great confidence in the security of Adiantum.”
