[117886] in Cypherpunks
Re: request for information/virtual private network as parallel architecture
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael J. Fromberger)
Tue Sep 14 10:40:48 1999
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 10:07:14 -0400
From: "Michael J. Fromberger" <Fromberger@Clothing.Dartmouth.EDU>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message-ID: <19990914100714.C21668@linguist.dartmouth.edu>
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In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.19990914134211.007d9100@mail.elender.hu>; from holist on Tue, Sep 14, 1999 at 01:42:11PM +0200
Reply-To: "Michael J. Fromberger" <Fromberger@Clothing.Dartmouth.EDU>
quoth holist:
> I wonder if it is possible to create a virtual private network which,
> operating as a parallel architecture composed of its nodes, implements a
> database that is accessible from each of the nodes in such a way that the
> information contained in any one or few of the nodes does not permit
> reconstruction of the database and in which the database would be "doing
> sommersaults" all the time so that only simultaneous interception of the
> data content of the majority of nodes would allow the database to be
> reconstructed?
It seems like you're basically describing a software RAID, where the
data are mirrored, but instead of mirroring literal copies, you mirror
shares of the data constructed using some secret-sharing scheme.
Would some variation of Shamir's linear-algebraic scheme work for this
purpose?
Of course, you'd have the problem that if one of your nodes bit the
dust, you'd be screwed, but then that's the point of encryption.
-M
--
Michael J. Fromberger Software Engineer, Thayer School of Engineering
sting <at> linguist.dartmouth.edu http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sting/
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