Dispersed Storage Network Data Security via Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current dispersed storage networks face challenges in securely and reliably storing and retrieving large amounts of data across multiple geographically distributed locations, particularly in ensuring data integrity and security against failures and hacking attempts.
Innovation Solution
A distributed computing system that employs dispersed error encoding and decoding schemes, such as Shamir secret sharing and Rabin information dispersal algorithms, to segment and distribute data across multiple storage units, allowing for secure storage and retrieval while tolerating failures and ensuring data integrity through error correction and encryption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If data is stored in a dispersed storage network across multiple geographically distributed locations, then data availability and fault tolerance are improved, but data security and integrity against hacking attempts deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments data into multiple encoded slices using error correction coding and distributes them across different storage units. Each slice alone reveals zero information about the original data, providing inherent security while maintaining availability through distributed storage
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces cryptographic intermediaries including secret sharing schemes and encryption keys that mediate between the stored data slices and the original data. These intermediaries enable secure reconstruction only when sufficient slices are combined, preventing unauthorized access while maintaining data availability
2Reliability
If data is segmented and distributed across multiple storage units, then fault tolerance is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements universal encoding and decoding algorithms that can be applied regardless of the number of storage units or failure scenarios. The same error correction coding scheme handles both fault tolerance and security functions, reducing overall system complexity despite distributed architecture
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses adjustable parameters in the error correction coding scheme to balance fault tolerance and security requirements. By changing coding parameters such as the number of slices and reconstruction threshold, the system adapts to different reliability and complexity constraints without redesigning the entire architecture
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes receiving a retrieval request regarding an encoded key stream slice of a set of encoded key stream slices and an encoded and encrypted data slice of a set of encoded and encrypted data slices. The method further includes partially dispersed storage error decoding the encoded key stream slice to produce a partially decoded key stream vector. The method further includes partially dispersed storage error decoding the encoded and encrypted data slice to produce a partially decoded and encrypted data vector. The method further includes partially decrypting the partially decoded and encrypted data vector in accordance with the encryption function and based on the partially decoded key stream vector to produce a partially decrypted and decoded data vector. The method further includes sending the partially decrypted and encoded data vector to the requesting computing device.