Ephemeral Key Pools for Resilient Secure Communications
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Solution Overview
Problem
Key distribution centers represent a single point of failure and vulnerability in secure communication systems, as they can become unavailable or compromised, leading to disruptions and potential man-in-the-middle attacks.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that allow users to generate and manage ephemeral key pairs locally, enabling encrypted communications without relying on a key distribution center, by transmitting requests for user profiles, retrieving information from local storage, generating encryption keys, and using key-encrypting keys to secure communications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a key distribution center is used to facilitate secure communications, then key distribution and communication setup are simplified, but the system becomes vulnerable to single points of failure and man-in-the-middle attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the key distribution function by allowing each user to maintain their own key pool locally rather than relying on a centralized key distribution center. Users can retrieve keys from their local storage or generate new key pairs independently, distributing the key management authority across multiple independent nodes.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-generating and storing multiple ephemeral key pairs in each user's local key pool before communication is needed. This allows users to immediately retrieve and use keys without real-time generation or centralized distribution, enabling communication even when offline.
2Reliability
If ephemeral key pools are stored locally on each device, then communication resilience and security are improved, but device storage requirements and key management complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses disposable ephemeral key pairs that are generated, used once for encryption/decryption, and then discarded. Each key in the pool is intended for single-use or limited-use scenarios, after which new key pairs are generated to replace them, maintaining security without long-term key management overhead.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of key lifecycle from permanent to temporary/ephemeral. Keys are generated with expiration parameters and are automatically rotated or replaced after use or after a certain time period, reducing the burden of long-term key protection while maintaining continuous security.
Data Source
AI summary
A method, system, and non-transitory computer readable medium are described for providing a sender a plurality of ephemeral keys such that a sender and receiver can exchange encrypted communications. Accordingly, a sender may retrieve information, such as a public key and a key identifier, for the first receiver from a local storage. The retrieved information may be used to generate a key-encrypting key that is used to generate a random communication encryption key. The random communication encryption key is used to encrypt a communication, while the key-encrypting key encrypts the random communication key. The encrypted communication and the encrypted random communication key are transmitted to the first receiver.