Distributed Tokenization Collision Avoidance via Central Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing data protection techniques face challenges in minimizing processing and storage burdens while improving security and tracking data use information, particularly in distributed environments where token collisions can occur, leading to inefficiencies and security vulnerabilities.
Innovation Solution
A central token management system is implemented to manage tokens generated by clients in a distributed tokenization environment, preventing collisions by determining whether candidate tokens cause conflicts with tokens from other clients, and assigning unique ranges of token values to each client to ensure non-colliding tokens are generated.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If a distributed tokenization environment is used to reduce processing and storage burden, then data protection efficiency is improved, but token collisions occur between different clients
Solution Approach 1:
A central token management system is introduced as an intermediary between distributed clients to coordinate token generation. The central system receives collision queries from clients, determines whether candidate tokens collide with existing tokens, and returns collision information to guide clients in selecting unique tokens, thereby resolving the contradiction between distributed efficiency and token uniqueness.
Solution Approach 2:
The central token management system implements a feedback mechanism where clients send candidate tokens for verification, receive collision information as feedback, and adjust their token selection accordingly. This feedback loop ensures that distributed clients can generate unique tokens without centralizing the entire token generation process, maintaining efficiency while ensuring uniqueness.
2Reliability
If extensive computing resources are used to encode and decode data, then data security is improved, but processing burden increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes the parameter of token generation from computationally intensive cryptographic operations to simpler token creation followed by lightweight collision verification against a central system. This parameter change maintains security through the uniqueness guarantee provided by the central token management system while significantly reducing the processing burden on distributed clients.
3Reliability
If distinct systems store protected data in distinct repositories, then data protection is improved, but storage and processing burden increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the token management functionality into two parts: local token generation and storage at distributed clients, and central collision verification and coordination. This segmentation allows each client to maintain its own protected data repositories independently while reducing overall system complexity through the modular role of the central token management system in coordinating uniqueness.
Data Source
AI summary
A client receives sensitive data to be tokenized. The client queries a token table with a portion of the sensitive data to determine if the token table includes a token mapped to the value of the portion of the sensitive data. If the mapping table does not include a token mapped to the value of the portion of the sensitive data, a candidate token is generated. The client queries a central token management system to determine if the candidate token collides with a token generated by or stored at another client. In some embodiments, the candidate token includes a value from a unique set of values assigned by the central token management system to the client, guaranteeing that the candidate token does not cause a collision. The client then tokenizes the sensitive data with the candidate token and stores the candidate token in the token table.