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Distributing the Encryption and Decryption of a Block Cipher

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Abstract

In threshold cryptography, the goal is to distribute the computation of basic cryptographic primitives across a number of nodes in order to relax trust assumptions on individual nodes, as well as to introduce a level of fault-tolerance against node compromise. Most threshold cryptography has previously looked at the distribution of public key primitives, particularly threshold signatures and threshold decryption mechanisms. In this paper, we look at the application of threshold cryptography to symmetric primitives, and in particular the encryption or decryption of a symmetric key block cipher. We comment on some previous work in this area and then propose a model for shared encryption / decryption of a block cipher. We will present several approaches to enable such systems and will compare them.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Security Group, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK

    Keith M. Martin & Peter R. Wild

  2. School of Information Technology and Computer Science, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, 2522, Australia

    Rei Safavi-Naini

  3. Department of Computing, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Huaxiong Wang

Authors
  1. Keith M. Martin
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  2. Rei Safavi-Naini
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  3. Huaxiong Wang
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  4. Peter R. Wild
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Keith M. Martin.

Additional information

AMS classification: 94A60, 94A62, 68P25

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Martin, K.M., Safavi-Naini, R., Wang, H. et al. Distributing the Encryption and Decryption of a Block Cipher. Des Codes Crypt 36, 263–287 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-003-1719-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-003-1719-4

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