The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 08, 1997
Filed:
Sep. 03, 1996
Frank Thomsen Leighton, Newtonville, MA (US);
Other;
Abstract
A method of generating cryptographic keys to implement a Failsafe Key Escrow system. A prime modulus Q and a generator G for Z.sub.Q are publicly known. The public key P.sub.X that is escrowed for user X is G.sup.SX mod Q, where Sx is the secret key for user X. The user picks a random secret value A from [0, Q-2] and announces the value of G.sup.A mod Q to a set of trustees or a central authority. Next the user 'shares' A with the trustees using a verifiable secret sharing scheme. The trustees and/or the central authority selects a random value B from the interval [0, Q-2] and they set the user's public key to be P.sub.X =(G.sup.A)G.sup.B mod Q. The value of B is returned to the user and is escrowed with the public key for X. The value of B is not released to the public. The user's then sets his secret key to be S.sub.X =A+B mod (Q-1).