Cryptographic system with halting key derivation function capabilities

Abstract

A halting key derivation function is provided. A setup process scrambles a user-supplied password and a random string in a loop. When the loop is halted by user input, the setup process may generate verification information and a cryptographic key. The key may be used to encrypt data. During a subsequent password verification and key recovery process, the verification information is retrieved, a user-supplied trial password obtained, and both are used together to recover the key using a loop computation. During the loop, the verification process repeatedly tests the results produced by the looping scrambling function against the verification information. In case of match, the trial password is correct and a cryptographic key matching the key produced by the setup process may be generated and used for data decryption. As long as there is no match, the loop may continue indefinitely until interrupted exogenously, such as by user input.