SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR EFFICIENT TRUST PRESERVATION IN DATA STORES

• US 20100212017A1
• Filed: 02/18/2009
• Published: 08/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/18/2009
• Status: Active Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Li, Tiancheng, Ma, Xiaonan
• Application Number:
  US12/388,422
• Publication Number:
  US 20100212017A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/57 Certifying or maintaining trusted computer platforms, e.g. secure boots or power-downs, version controls, system software checks, secure updates or assessing vulnerabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/645 using a third party
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2105 Dual mode as a secondary aspect
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2145 Inheriting rights or properties, e.g., propagation of permissions or restrictions within a hierarchy
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/30 Compression, e.g. Merkle-Damgard construction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/60 Digital content management, e.g. content distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/008 involving homomorphic encryption
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3236 using cryptographic hash functions

Abstract

The invention provides a method and system for preserving trustworthiness of data, the method includes storing data on an untrusted system, and committing the data to a trusted computing base (TCB). The committing includes upon an end of a predetermined time interval, transmitting a constant size authentication data from the untrusted system to the TCB, and the TCB preserving trustworthiness of the authentication data based on performing a single hash operation of a first root and a second root of a general hash tree representing authenticated data.

Claims

1. A method for preserving trustworthiness of data, the method comprising:

storing data on an untrusted system; and

committing the data to a trusted computing base (TCB), wherein said committing comprises;

upon an end of a predetermined time interval, transmitting a constant size authentication data from the untrusted system to the TCB; and

the TCB preserving trustworthiness of the authentication data based on performing a single hash operation of a first root and a second root of a general hash tree representing authenticated data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the committing comprises computing a third root of the general hash tree based on the hash of the first root and the second root.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the committing further comprises generating the third root and comparing the third root with a computed root value.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the hash tree including a plurality of leaves each storing information relating to a corresponding metadata page.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein each internal node of the tree is computed as a hash of its children nodes.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein different hash functions are applied at different internal nodes.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the different hash functions belong to a homomorphic hashing family.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

computing a tag value and an exponent value for each internal node.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the tag value is a product of tag values of the tag'"'"'s two children, and the exponent value is the tag value of the node'"'"'s sibling.

10. A system for preserving trustworthiness of data, comprising:

at least one untrusted module configured to store data; and

a trusted computing base (TCB) module coupled to the untrusted module, the TCB configured to authenticate the data,

wherein upon an end of a predetermined time interval, the untrusted module transmits a constant size authentication data to the TCB for commitment, and the TCB preserves trustworthiness of the authentication data based on performing a single hash operation of a first root and a second root of a general hash tree representing authenticated data.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the TCB preserves trustworthiness by further computing a third root of the general hash tree based on the hash of the first root and the second root.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein each internal node of the tree is computed as a hash of its children nodes.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein different hash functions are applied at different internal nodes.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the different hash functions belong to a homomorphic hashing family.

15. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a distributed network including a plurality of untrusted module sub-systems, wherein the TCB module is further configured to preserve trustworthiness of data stored on each untrusted module sub-system.

16. A computer program product for preserving trustworthiness of data comprising a computer usable medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to:

store data on an untrusted system; and

commit the data to a trusted computing base (TCB), wherein said commit further causes the computer to;

upon an end of a predetermined time interval, transmit constant size authentication data from the untrusted system to the TCB; and

the TCB preserves trustworthiness of the authentication data based on performing a single hash operation of a first root and a second root of a general hash tree representing authenticated data.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the TCB verifies trustworthiness by comparing a third root of the general hash tree with a computed root value.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein different hash functions are applied at different internal nodes of the general hash tree.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein each internal node of the tree is computed as a hash of its children nodes, and different hash functions are applied at different internal nodes.

20. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the different hash functions belong to a homomorphic hashing family.