Keeping the internet secure

October 2005

Report: Penny Fannin
Photography: Melissa Di Ciero

An interest in image processing has led to Monash alumnus Shan Suthaharan developing an algorithm that provides security to internet applications and data transmission.

Secure online: Shan Suthaharan.

Dr Suthaharan, who completed his PhD in image processing at Monash in 1995, developed the algorithm to satisfy the need for sophisticated methods to meet US internet security guidelines and fend off increasingly skilled computer hackers.

His security encryption technology, developed at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, was licensed to US software developer Live Cargo late last year.

After completing his PhD, Dr Suthaharan lectured at Monash's Gippsland campus until 1998. While there, he received an Australian-American Research Fellowship to conduct research at the University of Texas at Arlington. He spent three months there and, after returning to Australia, moved to Tennessee State University, where he stayed until 2001.

Although Dr Suthaharan's earlier research was in other areas, while at Tennessee State he became interested in cryptography and the security of computer networks. In 2002, he moved to the University of North Carolina to teach and conduct research in cryptography and network security. This led to the development of his revolutionary 'key generation and encryption' algorithm.

"It is a simple, flexible and computationally inexpensive algorithm that provides high security and scalability over a large number of internet users," says Dr Suthaharan, who is director of computer science in the UNCG Department of Mathematical Sciences. "It can accept fingerprints and/or photographs -- even digital video frames."