I'm looking for some advice on my current project using Genetic Algorithms. Although I was supposed to write a "small" program demonstrating GAs in some way for my university course work I'm very interested in seeing what it can do further.

The program I've written basically splits any file into two strings of bytes and uses 'crossover' at both a byte and bit level to encrypt the data, using a key entered by the user. The numbers the user enters are used as intersection points to decide where to splice the byte strings.

The first pass through the data swaps/crosses bytes between the two strings. The second pass then swaps bits between the strings. Once both passes are done the strings are written back to a new file.

I'm interested in anyone's views on how secure this method of encryption could be? I'm by no means a professional programmer yet but I'm interested in how this method would compare to conventional XOR encryption. Or if you have any ideas on how this method could be improved?

So far I've only tested the algorithm with small text files and jpegs. Looking at the resulting files I was impressed to find that it removed patterns in the data and encrypted the files extremely quickly (in comparison to using another standard encryption program).

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Leon ^^