Secure Shares Generation via M-Blocks Partitioning for Counting-Based Secret Sharing

Keywords: Counting-based secret sharing, Shares generation, Shares construction, Key management, Key distribution, Information security

Abstract

Counting-based secret sharing is presented recently as a promising approach serving multi-user authentication applications. The scheme originally generates its shares via simple flipping of one or two 0-bits within the entire secret key at various locations. Reconstructing the secret key combines chosen shares, based on (n,k) threshold, in parallel specific counting to recover back the secret key. This paper proposes modifying the shares generation process, for security enhancement, by dividing the secret key into blocks. Each block involves flipping specific bits simultaneously, generating ambiguous shares improving the access system security. The proposed blocks flipping shares methods is implemented in different 64-bits models via fair testing Java platform. Experimentations showed interesting comparisons results providing remarkable secure contributions. The work can be considered an opening applicability direction for further attractive research in improving the counting-based secret sharing technique.

Author Biographies

Adnan Gutub, Umm Al-Qura University
Prof. Adnan Abdul-Aziz Gutub is ranked as Full Professor in Computer Engineering specialized in Information and Computer Security within College of Computers and Information Systems at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU). He has been working as the Vice Dean of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Institute of the Hajj & OmrahResearch, Known publicly as Hajj Research Institute (HRI), within (UQU), Makkah Al-Mukarramah, all Muslims religious Holy City located within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Adnan’s academic experience in Computer Engineering was gained from his previous long-time work as Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Lecturer, and Graduate Assistant, all in Computer Engineering at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He received his Ph.D. degree (2002) in Electrical and Computer Engineering  from Oregon State University, USA. He had his BS in Electrical Engineering and MS in Computer Engineering both from KFUPM, Saudi Arabia. Adnan's research work can be observed through his 90+ publications (international journals and conferences) as well as his 5 US patents registered officially by USPTO. His main research interests involved optimizing, modeling, simulating, and synthesizing VLSI hardware for crypto and security computer arithmetic operations. He worked on designing efficient integrated circuits for the Montgomery inverse computation in different finite fields. He has some work in modeling architectures for RSA and elliptic curve crypto operations. His interest in computer security also involved steganography and secret-sharing focusing on image based steganography and Arabic text steganography as well as counting based secret sharing. Adnan’s research interest in computing and information technology have been broaden to also relate to smart crowd management and intelligent transportation engineering systems because of the involvement in Hajj and OmrahResearch at UQU - Makkah. In summer 2013, Adnan has been awarded 3-month visiting scholar grant in collaboration with Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. He had been involved in research of current studies related to Arabic Text Steganography in Data Security as well as Elliptic Curve Crypto Processor Designs. His activities at Purdue was in relation to three main research groups: Distributed Multimedia Systems Laboratory, Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments (VACCIEN). Previously, Adnan have been twice awarded the UK visiting internship for 2 months of summer 2005 and summer 2008, both sponsored by the British Council in Saudi Arabia. The 2005 summer research visit was at Brunel University to collaborate with the Bio-Inspired Intelligent System (BIIS) research group in a project to speed-up a scalable modular inversion hardware architecture. The 2008 visit was at University of Southampton with the Pervasive Systems Centre (PSC) for research related to text steganography and data security. Administratively, Adnan Gutub filled many executive and managerial academic positions at KFUPM as well as UQU. At KFUPM - Dhahran, he had the experience of chairing the Computer Engineering department (COE) for five years until moving to Makkah in 2010. Then, at UQU - Makkah, Adnan Chaired the Information Systems Department at the College of Computers and Information Systems followed by his leadership of the Center of Research Excellence in Hajj and Omrah (HajjCoRE) serving as HajjCoRE director for around 3-years until the end of 2013. Then, he was assigned his last position (until March 2016) as the Vice Dean of HRI, i.e. the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Institute of the Hajj & Omrah Research. For more details about Adnan and his activities, you are welcome to visit the links at the top of the webpage!!
Adel Al-Qurashi, Umm Al-Qura University

Adel Mohammad Al-Qurashi is a graduate student pursuing Master of Sciences (MS) degree in Computer Sciences & Engineering, at Umm Al Qura University (UQU) fully sponsored by UQU with support from Ministry of Education. Adel completed his Bachelor degree in Computer Science from King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. Beside his graduate student involvement, he is currently working as a computer science instructor at Secondary School as with the Government Education for Ministry of Education, in Taif, Saudi Arabia. His computer technical experience covered several areas such as networks, cybersecurity, programming with C++ and Java, as well as web design with HTML5, PHP, and JavaScript. His MS program at UQU is specialized in the Information Security track offered by the College of Computer and Information Systems offered at UQU-Makkah Campus, Saudi Arabia. Adel's research interest involved Cryptography, Steganography and Secret Sharing. His Master Thesis topic is about Improving Security and Reliability of Counting-Based Secret Sharing Scheme, where this research is his current contribution.

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Published
2020-08-13
Section
Computer Engineering