Zero Round Trip Secure Communications Using Noisy Secrets
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current secure communication systems fail to effectively address issues associated with noisy secrets, where small differences in negotiated secrets between sender and receiver lead to message loss and decryption failures.
Innovation Solution
A method for implementing zero round trip secure communications using two noisy secrets, involving key derivation, sub-key generation, and encryption of message keys with random test bytes to ensure at least one noiseless sub-key is available, reducing message overhead and increasing the probability of successful decryption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a single negotiated secret is used for secure communication, then the system is simple to implement, but message loss occurs when the secret is noisy (differ between sender and receiver)
Solution Approach 1:
The negotiated secret is divided into multiple sub-keys, each of which can independently decrypt the message. This segmentation allows the system to tolerate noise in the original secret while maintaining reliability through multiple independent decryption paths.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of secret key structure from a single unified key to multiple sub-keys with different noise tolerances. By adjusting the number and size of sub-keys, the system can optimize between reliability and computational overhead.
2Reliability
If multiple sub-keys are generated from a noisy secret, then message loss is reduced, but the number of required sub-keys and message overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent optimizes the parameters of sub-key generation by adjusting sub-key size and number based on the measured noise level in the negotiated secret. This allows the system to generate the minimum necessary number of sub-keys to achieve acceptable reliability, reducing overhead while maintaining decryption success rate.
Solution Approach 2:
The system generates a controlled number of sub-keys that provides sufficient redundancy to handle typical noise levels without creating excessive overhead. This partial action approach balances reliability improvement against the cost of additional encryption operations.
3Strength
If larger message keys are used, then security is improved, but the number of required sub-keys and computational overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
Large message keys are segmented into multiple sub-keys, allowing the system to achieve high security through key size while distributing the computational workload across multiple smaller, manageable encryption operations rather than one large complex operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses a number of sub-keys that provides sufficient security strength without creating excessive computational overhead. By carefully selecting the number of sub-keys based on security requirements and noise levels, the system achieves adequate encryption strength with reasonable computational cost.
Data Source
AI summary
Zero round trip secure communications is implemented based on two noisy secrets. A sender system: calculates a required number of sub-keys to have at least one noiseless sub-key; for each first negotiated secret sub-key, uses the sub-key to encrypt a first half of a message key and test bytes, and adds the encrypted first half of the message key and the encrypted test bytes to the encrypted message; for each second negotiated secret sub-key, uses the sub-key to encrypt a second half of the message key and the test bytes, and adds the encrypted second half of the message key and the encrypted test bytes to the encrypted message; and sends the encrypted message, message MAC information, encrypted first halves of the message key with associated encrypted test bytes, and encrypted second halves of the message key with associated encrypted test bytes to a receiver.