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Bug#315228: RFP: ssss -- Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme



Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist


* Package name    : ssss
  Version         : 0.2
  Upstream Author : B. Poettering
* URL             : http://point-at-infinity.org/ssss/
* License         : GPL
  Description     : Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme

Citing from the homepage:

<snip>
ssss is an implementation of Shamir's secret sharing scheme for UNIX
systems, tested only on linux machines until now. The code is licensed
under the GNU GPL. ssss does both the generation of shares for a known
secret and the reconstruction of a secret using user provided shares.
The software was written in 2005 by B. Poettering, it links against the
GNU libgmp  multiprecision library (version 4.1.4 in my case) and
requires the /dev/random entropy source.
</snip>

What is secret sharing?

<snip>
In cryptography, a secret sharing scheme is a method for distributing a
secret amongst a group of participants, each of which is allocated a
share of the secret. The secret can only be reconstructed when the
shares are combined together; individual shares are of no use on their
own.

More formally, in a secret sharing scheme there is one dealer  and n
players. The dealer gives a secret to the players, but only when
specific conditions are fulfilled. The dealer accomplishes this by
giving each player a share in such a way that any group of t (for
threshold) or more players can together reconstruct the secret but no
group of less than t players can. Such a system is called a
(t,n)-threshold scheme.
</snip>

Thanks,
	Lennart

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.11
Locale: LANG=de_DE@euro, LC_CTYPE=de_DE@euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)



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