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A novel threshold changeable secret sharing scheme

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Abstract

A (t, n) threshold secret sharing scheme is a fundamental tool in many security applications such as cloud computing and multiparty computing. In conventional threshold secret sharing schemes, like Shamir’s scheme based on a univariate polynomial, additional communication key share scheme is needed for shareholders to protect the secrecy of their shares if secret reconstruction is performed over a network. In the secret reconstruction, the threshold changeable secret sharing (TCSS) allows the threshold to be a dynamic value so that if some shares have been compromised in a given time, it needs more shares to reconstruct the secret. Recently, a new secret sharing scheme based on a bivariate polynomial is proposed in which shares generated initially by a dealer can be used not only to reconstruct the secret but also to protect the secrecy of shares when the secret reconstruction is performed over a network. In this paper, we further extend this scheme to enable it to be a TCSS without any modification. Our proposed TCSS is dealer-free and non-interactive. Shares generated by a dealer in our scheme can serve for three purposes, (a) to reconstruct a secret; (b) to protect the secrecy of shares if secret reconstruction is performed over a network; and (c) to enable the threshold changeable property.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants Nos. 61772224, 62072133), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (CCNU19TS019), the Research Planning Project of National Language Committee (YB135-40) and the key projects of Guangxi Natural Science Foundation (2018GXNSFDA281040). Lein Harn, Chingfang Hsu and Zhe Xia contributed equally to this work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science Electrical Engineering, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, 64110, USA

    Lein Harn

  2. Computer School, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Chingfang Hsu

  3. Department of Computer Science, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Zhe Xia

Authors
  1. Lein Harn
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  2. Chingfang Hsu
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  3. Zhe Xia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chingfang Hsu.

Additional information

Lein Harn received the BS degree in electrical engineering from the Taiwan University, China in 1977, the MS degree in electrical engineering from the State University of New York-Stony Brook, USA in 1980, and the Ph D degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota, USA in 1984. He is currently a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Missouri, USA. He is currently investigating new ways of using secret sharing in various applications.

Chingfang Hsu received the MEng and the PhD degrees in information security from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China in 2006 and 2010, respectively. From Sep. 2010 to Mar. 2013, she was a Research Fellow at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Central China Normal University, China. Her research interests are in cryptography and network security, especially in secret sharing and its applications.

Zhe Xia received the MEng and the PhD degrees in information security from University of Surrey, UK in 2005 and 2009, respectively. From 2009 to 2013, he was a Research Fellow at University of Surrey, UK. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Department of Computer Science, Wuhan University of Technology, China. His research interests are in cryptography and network security, especially in secret sharing and its applications.

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Harn, L., Hsu, C. & Xia, Z. A novel threshold changeable secret sharing scheme. Front. Comput. Sci. 16, 161807 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-020-0300-x

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