On Cheating Immune Secret Sharing

The paper addresses the cheating prevention in secret sharing. We consider secret sharing with binary shares. The secret also is binary. This model allows us to use results and constructions from the well developed theory of cryptographically strong boolean functions. In particular, we prove that for given secret sharing, the average cheating probability over all cheating vectors and all original vectors, i.e., 1/n 2^n ∑ _c=1...n ∑ _α ∈V n ρ _c,α , denoted by øverlineρ , satisfies øverlineρ ≥ \frac12 , and the equality holds if and only if ρ _c,α satisfies ρ _c,α = \frac12 for every cheating vector δ _c and every original vector α . In this case the secret sharing is said to be cheating immune. We further establish a relationship between cheating-immune secret sharing and cryptographic criteria of boolean functions.This enables us to construct cheating-immune secret sharing

Society-oriented cryptographic techniques for information protection

Groups play an important role in our modern world. They are more reliable and more trustworthy than individuals. This is the reason why, in an organisation, crucial decisions are left to a group of people rather than to an individual. Cryptography supports group activity by offering a wide range of cryptographic operations which can only be successfully executed if a well-defined group of people agrees to co-operate. This thesis looks at two fundamental cryptographic tools that are useful for the management of secret information. The first part looks in detail at secret sharing schemes. The second part focuses on society-oriented cryptographic systems, which are the application of secret sharing schemes in cryptography. The outline of thesis is as follows

Energy efficient mining on a quantum-enabled blockchain using light

We outline a quantum-enabled blockchain architecture based on a consortium of quantum servers. The network is hybridised, utilising digital systems for sharing and processing classical information combined with a fibre--optic infrastructure and quantum devices for transmitting and processing quantum information. We deliver an energy efficient interactive mining protocol enacted between clients and servers which uses quantum information encoded in light and removes the need for trust in network infrastructure. Instead, clients on the network need only trust the transparent network code, and that their devices adhere to the rules of quantum physics. To demonstrate the energy efficiency of the mining protocol, we elaborate upon the results of two previous experiments (one performed over 1km of optical fibre) as applied to this work. Finally, we address some key vulnerabilities, explore open questions, and observe forward--compatibility with the quantum internet and quantum computing technologies.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure

Contextualizing Alternative Models of Secret Sharing

A secret sharing scheme is a means of distributing information to a set of players such that any authorized subset of players can recover a secret and any unauthorized subset does not learn any information about the secret. In over forty years of research in secret sharing, there has been an emergence of new models and extended capabilities of secret sharing schemes. In this thesis, we study various models of secret sharing and present them in a consistent manner to provide context for each definition. We discuss extended capabilities of secret sharing schemes, including a comparison of methods for updating secrets via local computations on shares and an analysis of approaches to reproducing/repairing shares. We present an analysis of alternative adversarial settings which have been considered in the area of secret sharing. In this work, we present a formalization of a deniability property which is inherent to some classical secret sharing schemes. We provide new, game-based definitions for different notions of verifiability and robustness. By using consistent terminology and similar game-based definitions, we are able to demystify the subtle differences in each notion raised in the literature

Dissecting disgust : an investigation of the validity of the Three Domain Disgust Scale

Research on the emotion disgust, and particularly individual differences in disgust sensitivity, has exploded in the past 15 years. However, most of this research has been based on outdated theory and poorly designed instruments. Tybur et al., (2009) suggested that past theoretical perspectives on disgust should best be updated in light of an evolutionary perspective, and measurement of disgust sensitivity should be developed based on an evolutionarily informed theory. After suggesting that disgust should be categorized along domains related to pathogens, sexuality, and morality, they introduced the Three Domain Disgust Scale, a new measure of individual differences in disgust sensitivity. The current set of investigation aimed to advance knowledge of the validity of the Three Domain Disgust Scale. A first study demonstrated that the pathogen, sexual, and moral factors of the Three Domain Disgust Scale relates to Five Factor Model dimensions in a manner consistent with the theory under which the Three Domain Disgust Scale was developed. A second study demonstrated that only sensitivity to sexual disgust relates to political conservativism, but sensitivity to moral disgust relates to disgust reported toward ideologically conflicting ideas and figures within the political realm. A third study demonstrated that the Three Domain Disgust Scale measures three dimensions in both men and women, though the degree to which individual scale items measure these factors varies somewhat between the sexes. Results of these studies are discussed, as is the current state of knowledge of the validity of the Three Domain Disgust Scale, and potentially fruitful future research directio

Secret Sharing in Visual Cryptography

This thesis examines techniques for recursive hiding scheme for 3 out of 5 secret sharing and a probabilistic 2 out of 3 secret sharing scheme for gray scale images. In recursive hiding of secrets several messages can be hidden in one of the shares of the original secret image. The images that are to be hidden are taken according to their sizes from smaller to the largest. The first small secret image is divided into five different shares using visual cryptography. These shares are placed in the next level to create the shares of larger secret information. The shares at each consecutive level are distributed so that no one has access to all the shares of the smaller images, unless at least three participants come together to reveal the secret information, resulting in 3 out of 5 scheme. In the proposed protocol for gray scale images, the quality of the image is perfect when it is reconstructed for the construction of the final image based on the binary OR operation.Computer Science Departmen