Patent ID: 8130944

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by a computing device, encrypted information and additional information, the additional information including data indicative of a delay and a plurality of different seeds, wherein the encrypted information was encrypted using the delay, the plurality of different seeds, and a key generated from a plurality of transform functions each transform function used iteratively a number of times, the plurality of transform functions applied using multiple cellular automata running in parallel starting from a different seed from the plurality of different seeds, with a total number of times corresponding to a specified time that is to be incurred before the key can be obtained; and decrypting, by the computing device, the encrypted information using cellular automata utilizing the additional information, no sooner than the specified time, wherein decrypting the encrypted information using cellular automata utilizing the additional information comprises: generating the key by running a sequence of transform functions, each transform function run in the sequence starting from a different seed from the plurality of different seeds for the number of times using the data indicative of the delay, wherein, after an initial transform function, each transform function in the sequence of transform functions is run after completing an immediately preceding transform function in the sequence and output of the immediately preceding transform function is used as a decryption key to decrypt an encrypted seed; using the decrypted seed for a current transform function being run in the sequence of transform functions; and decrypting the encrypted information using the generated key.