Key Administrator Role for Secure Document Encryption
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for secure sharing of electronic documents among group members over a network face scalability and access control challenges, particularly when non-members have access, as they either require complex key distribution or rely on system administrators who may not be members of the group, leading to potential unauthorized access.
Innovation Solution
Introducing a key administrator role separate from the system administrator to manage and generate encryption keys, ensuring that only authorized members can access and decrypt group documents, while preventing non-members and system administrators from accessing encrypted documents they are not part of.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If each member receives a different encrypted version of the document using their public key, then security is improved, but device complexity and scalability deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the key distribution problem by introducing a key administrator who manages separate key pairs for different groups. Instead of distributing individual encrypted versions to each member, the system divides key management into group-level keys, reducing the complexity of key distribution while maintaining security through the key administrator's control.
Solution Approach 2:
The key administrator acts as an intermediary between the document publisher and group members. The key administrator generates and manages the group public and private keys, mediating the key distribution process and eliminating the need for complex direct key distribution between all parties, thus reducing device complexity while preserving security.
2Ease of operation
If a system administrator manages all encryption keys, then ease of operation is improved, but reliability deteriorates due to potential unauthorized access
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the administrator role into two distinct functions: system administrator (managing users and groups) and key administrator (managing encryption keys). This segmentation separates the convenience of centralized management from the security risk of unified access, allowing easy key management while preventing unauthorized access to non-related group documents.
Solution Approach 2:
The key administrator is granted specific local authority to manage keys for particular groups, rather than having universal access to all keys. This localized permission structure allows the key administrator to perform key management operations efficiently while restricting access to only the keys and groups they are authorized to manage, thereby maintaining both ease of operation and reliability.
3Productivity
If the same group private key is used for all documents, then productivity is improved, but reliability worsens when membership changes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic key management where the key administrator can generate new group private keys and update encrypted group documents when membership changes. This dynamic approach maintains the efficiency of using a single group key for multiple documents while ensuring access control accuracy by allowing key updates whenever group composition changes, resolving the contradiction between productivity and reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
A system administrator, while logged into a system-administrator account, creates and configures a key-administrator account and a member account. A key administrator, while logged into said key-administrator account, creates a group private key, a group public key, and a group symmetric key, a member private key, and a member public key. The key administrator encrypts the group private key with the group symmetric key, and encrypts said group symmetric key with the member public key. A publisher encrypts a document using the group public key. The publisher distributes the resulting encrypted group document so that it is accessible via said member account but not through said key-administrator account.