Huijia Lin proved that a master tool of cryptography is possible

A long-sought “holy grail” in cryptography is poised to change the way we protect sensitive information.

Today’s standard encryption schemes take an all-or-nothing approach. Once scrambled, your data become inaccessible to anyone without the secret key.

This has allowed for secure e-mail communication, the proliferation of online transactions and digital signatures. It allows tax and medical records with sensitive personal information to be passed more safely across the internet. But if you give someone the secret key to access any of the data, all of the data…