Polynomial-Based Secret Sharing for Social Account Recovery

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing account recovery systems are inefficient and insecure, often requiring multiple steps and personal information that can be compromised, leading to account lockout or unauthorized access.

Innovation Solution

A system that uses two or more friends to recover an account by generating and sharing partial secrets derived from a polynomial, ensuring neither friend can access the account alone, maintaining security and reducing the number of steps.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If traditional account recovery methods using personal information are used, then account recovery is possible, but security is compromised and unauthorized access may occur

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveaccount recovery securityVSAvoidunauthorized access risk

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The secret key is segmented into multiple parts and distributed to different friends. Each friend holds only a portion of the key, and no single friend can reconstruct the full key alone. This segmentation prevents unauthorized access while enabling legitimate recovery when sufficient friends cooperate.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

Friends act as intermediaries in the account recovery process. Instead of directly using personal information, the system uses friends as mediators who provide cryptographic shares. This intermediary layer enhances security by removing direct reliance on vulnerable personal information.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If multiple friends are involved in account recovery, then security is improved, but the recovery process complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveaccount recovery securityVSAvoidrecovery process complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The secret key segmentation and distribution to friends is performed in advance during account setup. This preliminary action ensures that when recovery is needed, the complex cryptographic operations have already been prepared, reducing the complexity burden during the actual recovery process.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

3Reliability

If traditional multi-step account recovery is used, then security checks are performed, but the recovery time and device resource usage increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveaccount verification securityVSAvoidaccount recovery time

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent replaces traditional mechanical verification steps (multiple manual checks, personal information validation) with cryptographic verification. The server performs efficient cryptographic validation of the friends' shares against the stored public key, significantly reducing recovery time and device resource usage while maintaining strong security.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Data Source

PatentUS12462013B2Social account recovery

Publication Date: 2025.11.04 SNAP INC

AI summary

Systems and methods are provided for performing operations including: receiving, via a messaging application of a user device, a request to recover access to an account of a user of the messaging application; accessing a first object corresponding to a first key; receiving, from a first friend of the user on the messaging application, a second object corresponding to a first portion of a second key; receiving, from a second friend of the user on the messaging application, a third object corresponding to a second portion of the second key; deriving the second key based on the second and third objects; and recovering access to the account of the user based on the first key and the second key.