EXCHANGING A SECRET OVER AN UNRELIABLE NETWORK

摘要

Threshold cryptography (secret sharing) is used for exchanging a secret between a server and a client over an unreliable network. Specifically, a secret is computationally divided into N shares using a threshold encryption scheme such that any M of the shares (M less than or equal to N) can be used to reconstruct the secret. The N shares are spread over a number of transmitted messages, with the assumption that some number of the messages including a total of at least M shares will be received by the client. Upon receiving at least M shares, the client uses the at least M shares to reconstruct the secret using the threshold encryption scheme.