Importance

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Abstract

A given decryption key is decomposed into at least two parts, for example, a first subkey and a second subkey. The first subkey may be verifiably secret-shared among a set of one or more trustees, whereas the trustees preferably receive no information at all about the second subkey. Reconstruction of the first subkey by the trustees does not yield a decryption key useful by itself in decrypting ciphertexts. The trustees, however, also receive a guarantee that once they reveal their shares to a given entity, the entity has the capability of determining the second subkey. Generally, the generation of the second subkey will be carried out by the entity using a brute force technique, although the calculation may be performed by still another party (or even the trustees themselves in cooperation with the entity). Once the second subkey is determined, the guarantee ensures that combination of the first and second subkeys yields a given decryption key that may then be used to decrypt ciphertexts.

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First Claim