© Stiftung Jugend forscht

Marcel Ullrich and Christopher Pfeiffer, both 18 years old, made encrypted data communication their own. Secure encryption requires random numbers - similar to the lottery. Generating these by computer is not easy. However, the two young researchers have succeeded in doing just that: They amplified the noise of a diode and analyzed it with a microcomputer. The trick: as the noise is generated by quantum effects, its generation is naturally subject to pure chance. The two used the resulting numbers for a new type of data encryption based on neural networks. This year, Ullrich and Pfeiffer have been awarded the prize for original work in the field of computer science.