Importance

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Abstract

A circuit and method for sharing a key among n individuals by distributing a secondary key to each of the n individuals such that only k of the n secondary keys are required in order to reconstruct the key, where k may be less than n. The key is encoded into a code vector which is corrupted by combining it with an error vector to yield a corrupted code vector. The secondary keys are chosen so that each one is a mutually exclusive part of the error vector. Reconstructing the key, which is the objective of the process and is analagous to opening a lock, requires correcting the corrupted code vector and transforming the code vector into the key. The corrupted code vector is corrected by a combination of an error correcting code and use of at least k of the secondary keys. Each secondary key can be used to correct the errors introduced in the part of the error vector that it comprises, and if less than k secondary keys are present, then even after the secondary keys have been used to correct the corresponding errors there are too many errors remaining for the error correcting code to correct, resulting in a failure to reconstruct the code vector or key.

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First Claim