Partial Hiding in Public-Key Cryptography

This paper explores the idea of partially exposing sections of the private key in public-key cryptosystems whose security is based on the intractability of factorising large integers. It is proposed to allow significant portions of the private key to be publicly available, reducing the amount of data which must be securely hidden. The ``secret\u27\u27 data could be XORed with an individual\u27s biometric reading in order to maintain a high level of security, and we suggest using iris templates for this purpose. Finally, we propose an implementation of this system for RSA, and consider the potential risks and advantages associated with such a scheme

Partial Hiding in Public-Key Cryptography

Abstract. This paper explores the idea of exposing sections of the private key in public-key cryptosystems whose security is based on the intractability of factorising large integers, such as RSA. While substantial work has been done in the area of partial key exposure, the aim has been to investigate the implications of inadvertant partial exposure of the private key. We focus instead on the potential advantages of deliberately revealing portions of the private key, and so, term our scheme “partial hiding”. Significant segments of the key are made publicly available, greatly reducing the amount of data which must be securely hidden. This allows us to use biometric readings to protect the secret portion of the private key. We use iris recognition with error-correcting codes for this purpose. We propose an implementation of this system for RSA, and consider the potential risks and advantages of such a scheme. Keywords: Public-key cryptography, Partial key exposure, Partial hiding, RSA, Iris, Biometrics