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Relativity could ensure security for cash machines

Entering your personal identification number using the keypad of a cash machine is notoriously insecure. A clever application of the special theory of relativity could make identification safer.
  1. Gilles Brassard

    1. Gilles Brassard is in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec H3T 1J4, Canada.

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When you type in your personal identification number (PIN) at a cash machine, you feel safe — provided you cover the keypad with your hand. But even the machines attached to banks are vulnerable to attack by fraudsters, some of whom go as far as to add fake machinery to legitimate machines as a way of stealing PINs (see go.nature.com/3p9r431). To prevent this type of fraud, a solution is needed that allows people to prove their identity without disclosing any secret information. Writing in Nature, Alikhani et al.1 describe an experiment that achieves this goal with unprecedented security, guaranteed by Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity.

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Nature 599, 36-37 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02950-4

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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