Fair Public-Key Cryptosystems

Abstract Joseph Kilian NEC Research Princeton, NJ 08540 Tom Leighton Mathematics Department Laboratory for Computer Science MIT Cambridge, MA 02139 August 17, 1994 Fair" Public Key Cryptosystems FPKCs have recently been proposed as a method for providing secure escrowing of keys without relying on special purpose hardware. In a fair public key cryptosystem, the cryptosystem users are allowed to choose their own public and private keys, but they must share their secret keys with a group of trustees escrow agencies in a manner that allows the trustees to reconstruct the secret key of any user in the event of a court order. The United States Government has recently acquired a license to Fair cryptosystem technology from Silvio Micali. The claimed advantage of the Micali FPKC over alternative approaches to key escrow is that the user in the Micali system is supposedly assured that his or her secret key will remain protected unless the trustees collaborate to reconstruct the secret ke...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1992
• Where: CRYPTO
• Authors: Silvio Micali
• Keywords: CRYPTO 1992, Cryptology, Key Cryptosystems FPKCs, Public Key Cryptosystem, Secret Key