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Systems and methods for quorum-based data recovery

  • US 10,176,056 B2
  • Filed: 04/10/2015
  • Issued: 01/08/2019
  • Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2014
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A computer-implemented method of quorum-based data recovery, by a quorum system in communication with a plurality of computing devices via a data network, the computing devices associated with respective users that are entities authorized to participate as quorum members, the method comprising:

  • receiving, from the plurality of computing devices by the quorum system, at least a predetermined minimum number of quorum portions generated from original data using a secret key that is partitioned into a plurality of key components, wherein each received quorum portion comprises;

    at least one ciphertext portion defining a received set of ciphertext portions generated by encrypting the original data using a partial encryption key formed from a corresponding defined combination of said key components; and

    at least one received key component of said plurality of key components, wherein the at least one received key component was not included in the defined combination of key components of the partial key used to generate the set of ciphertext portions of the corresponding received quorum portion;

    identifying the plurality of received key components from the received quorum portions;

    determining a plurality of candidate combinations of the identified received key components, each candidate combination forming a candidate partial key, and wherein each candidate combination corresponds to a defined set of ciphertext portions;

    identifying and decrypting, for the defined set of ciphertext portions of each candidate partial key, the corresponding at least one ciphertext portion from the received quorum portions, using the respective candidate partial key; and

    determining that at least one candidate partial key is a legitimate partial key to recover the original data by verifying received quorum portions that are correct and received purported quorum portions that include errors from the corresponding decrypted at least one ciphertext portion.

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