In this paper we show how to divide data D into n pieces in such a way that D is easily reconstructable from any k pieces, but even complete knowledge of k - 1 pieces reveals absolutely no information about D. This technique enables the construction of robust key management schemes for cryptographic systems that can function securely and reliably even when misfortunes destroy half the pieces and security breaches expose all but one of the remaining pieces.

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How to share a secret

From the Publisher:
A valuable reference for the novice as well as for the expert who needs a wider scope of coverage within the area of cryptography, this book provides easy and rapid access of information and includes more than 200 algorithms and protocols; more than 200 tables and figures; more than 1,000 numbered definitions, facts, examples, notes, and remarks; and over 1,250 significant references, including brief comments on each paper.

Handbook of Applied Cryptography

In several distributed systems a user should only be able to access data if a user posses a certain set of credentials or attributes. Currently, the only method for enforcing such policies is to employ a trusted server to store the data and mediate access control. However, if any server storing the data is compromised, then the confidentiality of the data will be compromised. In this paper we present a system for realizing complex access control on encrypted data that we call ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption. By using our techniques encrypted data can be kept confidential even if the storage server is untrusted; moreover, our methods are secure against collusion attacks. Previous attribute-based encryption systems used attributes to describe the encrypted data and built policies into user's keys; while in our system attributes are used to describe a user's credentials, and a party encrypting data determines a policy for who can decrypt. Thus, our methods are conceptually closer to traditional access control methods such as role-based access control (RBAC). In addition, we provide an implementation of our system and give performance measurements.

/pdf/ciphertext-policy-attribute-based-encryption-q09jxdyx4n.pdf

Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption

As more sensitive data is shared and stored by third-party sites on the Internet, there will be a need to encrypt data stored at these sites. One drawback of encrypting data, is that it can be selectively shared only at a coarse-grained level (i.e., giving another party your private key). We develop a new cryptosystem for fine-grained sharing of encrypted data that we call Key-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (KP-ABE). In our cryptosystem, ciphertexts are labeled with sets of attributes and private keys are associated with access structures that control which ciphertexts a user is able to decrypt. We demonstrate the applicability of our construction to sharing of audit-log information and broadcast encryption. Our construction supports delegation of private keys which subsumesHierarchical Identity-Based Encryption (HIBE).

/pdf/attribute-based-encryption-for-fine-grained-access-control-3fjqefx4um.pdf

Attribute-based encryption for fine-grained access control of encrypted data

It is shown how to distribute a secret to n persons such that each person can verify that he has received correct information about the secret without talking with other persons. Any k of these persons can later find the secret (1 ? k ? n), whereas fewer than k persons get no (Shannon) information about the secret. The information rate of the scheme is 1/2 and the distribution as well as the verification requires approximately 2k modular multiplications pr. bit of the secret. It is also shown how a number of persons can choose a secret "in the well" and distribute it veritably among themselves.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F3-540-46766-1_9.pdf

Non-Interactive and Information-Theoretic Secure Verifiable Secret Sharing

Certain cryptographic keys, such as a number which makes it possible to compute the secret decoding exponent in an RSA public key cryptosystem, 1 , 5 or the system master key and certain other keys in a DES cryptosystem, 3 are so important that they present a dilemma. If too many copies are distributed one might go astray. If too few copies are made they might all be destroyed.

G. R. Blakley

Papers

Safeguarding cryptographic keys

Safeguarding cryptographic keys