Showing papers on "Verifiable secret sharing published in 1979"

Safeguarding cryptographic keys

Abstract: 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.

The Design of a Verifiable Operating System Kernel

Abstract: The d e s i g n and i m p l e m e n t a t i o n o f an o p e r a t i n g system k e r n e l i s d e s c r i b e d and j u s t i f i e d . The k e r n e l implements p r o c e s s e s and p r i m i t i v e o p e r a t i o n s on p r o c e s s e s . A v a r i e t y o f o p e r a t i n g systems can be implemented by p r o c e s s e s e x e c u t i n g i n the environment the k e r n e l p r o v i d e s . P r o c e s s e s communicate v i a messages. S e v e r a l f a c i l i t i e s found i n o t h e r k e r n e l s , such as memory management and d e v i c e h a n d l i n g , a re not i n c l u d e d . I n s t e a d , the k e r n e l p r o v i d e s o p e r a t i o n s t h a t a l l o w t h e s e s e r v i c e s t o be implemented by p r o c e s s e s . The ease o f r e a s o n i n g about ( i . e . the v e r i f i a b i l i t y o f ) both the k e r n e l and the systems i t s u p p o r t s i s o f p r i m a r y c o n c e r n . The k e r n e l ' s v e r i f i a b i l i t y i s enhanced because: i t has been kept as s m a l l as r e a s o n a b l e ; a l l k e r n e l o p e r a t i o n s a re i n d i v i s i b l e ; the s e m a n t i c s o f the k e r n e l o p e r a t i o n s are s i m p l e ; and, the k e r n e l does not depend upon any p r o c e s s e s f o r i t s c o r r e c t o p e r a t i o n . The v e r i f i a b i l i t y o f systems the k e r n e l s u p p o r t s i s enhanced because they can be m o d u l a r i z e d such t h a t each module can be v e r i f i e d i n d i v i d u a l l y . T h i s i s p o s s i b l e because the k e r n e l e l i m i n a t e s many p r o c e s s i n t e r d e p e n d e n c i e s . An i m p l e m e n t a t i o n o f the k e r n e l t h a t s u p p o r t s a m u l t i p r o c e s s t e s t system l e n d s e m p i r i c a l s u p p o r t t o the d e s i g n . A l t h o u g h a complete o p e r a t i n g system has not y e t been c o n s t r u c t e d or v e r i f i e d , the r e s u l t s t o date are p r o m i s i n g .