README
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hlin
Warning! This software is highly experimental and is in no way intended to be used for any sensitve or production data.
Securely share secrets.
Why is this good?
- Allow key rotation independently of secret rotation
- Allow secret rotation independently of key rotation
- Create cryptographically secure data access mechanisms
- Create policies on secrets (not implemented yet)
How does it work?
hlin's cryptographic protocol works on a higher level as follows:
- Choose plaintext
- Choose participants
- Choose threshold
- Generate random key for use in symmetric encryption
- Encrypt plaintext with previously chosen symmetric key
- Split symmetric key in # of participants + 1 shares using Shamir's Secret Sharing with the chosen threshold
- Take one share as the public share, encrypt the others with the participants public key
The encrypted secret is made up of the symmetric ciphertext, a public share and # of participants encrypted private shares.
When decrypting the following happens:
- Decrypt private shares
- Combine public and private shares to reconstruct the symmetric key
- Decrypt the symmetric ciphertext
Both operations can be successfully performed without exchanging any data with
another participant, when the chosen treshold is 2. For thresholds larger than
2, n (threshold - 2) additional participants need to decrypt their share
and encrypt it with the participant wanting access to the plaintext.
Roadmap
The current state allows all of the above except for the last paragraph, as a secure way communication is required for it.
This software is highly experimental and at this point is in no way intended to be used in a production environment or for sensitive data.
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