Replicated secret share generation for distributed symmetric cryptography

Abstract

Methods and systems for securely generating secret shares in a distributed manner and distributing those secret shares to cryptographic devices are disclosed. The cryptographic devices can use these secret shares to perform threshold distributed cryptographic operations (e.g., encryption and decryption). The cryptographic devices can be partitioned into groups based on the total number of devices and a threshold number. One generating device from each group can generate a secret share corresponding to that group, then transmit the secret share to members of the group. The generating devices can also generate commitments and transmit those commitments to other cryptographic devices. A group of confirming devices can use the commitments to generate confirmation values that can be used to confirm that the secret share were generated and distributed correctly. Later, a threshold number of cryptographic devices, collectively possessing all the secret shares can perform cryptographic operations using those secret shares.