METHOD AND SYSTEM TO PROVIDE FINE GRANULAR INTEGRITY TO DIGITAL DATA

• US 20110173451A1
• Filed: 09/20/2010
• Published: 07/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/20/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Scytl Election Technologies SL
• Original Assignee: Kinamik Data Integrity SL
• Inventors: Primault, Christophe, Bardera Bosch, Joan Miquel, Demirkiran, Cevahir
• Granted Patent: US 8,904,182 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/172
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/645 using a third party

Abstract

A method and system to generate fine granular integrity to huge volumes of data in real time at a very low computational cost. The invention proposes a scalable system that can receive different digital data from multiple sources and generates integrity streams associated to the original data. This invention provides full guarantees for data integrity: order of data logged cannot be altered and content cannot be modified neither added nor deleted without detection.

Claims

1. A method to generate fine granular integrity to huge volumes of data in real time at a very low computational cost for use with a computer the method comprising:

receiving original data from multiple sources, locally or via the network using predetermined protocols;

processing the original data by cryptographic means for generating one or more immutable digital chains that contain at least integrity information related to the original data including timestamps; and

communicating said digital chains to a destination, said destination being one of;

the same as the sender of the original data, a different destination or a storage media,

wherein a chained and chronologically ordered list of active chains is provided;

every time immutable digital chains are generated or closed the list is updated as follows;

a. Updating the latest flag of the latest chain list to false, and re-computing its digital signature;

b. Adding a new chain list, with the latest flag set to true, an index set to one plus the index of the previous chain list, a timestamp, the list of active chains at the moment, and a digital signature of the concatenation of the digital signature of the previous chain list and the said contents of the new active chain list.

2. The method according to claim 1 with error correction codes.

3. The method according to all claim 1 wherein an industry standard smart card or a USB crypto-token or a standard Hardware Security Module is used to generate the private key for signing the chain lists, to keep it always secret, and to carry out cryptographic operations.

4. A system to generate fine granular integrity to huge volumes of data in real time at a very low computational cost comprising at least one independent server hosting a software program, platform independent implementation that can run on standard hardware, using any of the methods in claim 1.

5. The system according to claim 4, wherein a device selected among an industry standard Hardware Security Module (HSM), a smart card or a USB crypto-token is used to generate at least one private key, keep it always secret, and use it to carry out cryptographic operations.

6. A computer readable medium adapted to instruct a general purpose computer to generate fine granular integrity to huge volumes of data in real time at a very low computational cost, using any of the methods in claim 1.

7. A system to generate fine granular integrity to huge volumes of data in real time at a very low computational cost comprising at least one independent server hosting a software program, platform independent implementation that can run on standard hardware, using any of the methods in claim 2.

8. A system to generate fine granular integrity to huge volumes of data in real time at a very low computational cost comprising at least one independent server hosting a software program, platform independent implementation that can run on standard hardware, using any of the methods in claim 3.

9. The system according to claim 7, wherein a device selected among an industry standard Hardware Security Module (HSM), a smart card or a USB crypto-token is used to generate at least one private key, keep it always secret, and use it to carry out cryptographic operations.

10. The system according to claim 8, wherein a device selected among an industry standard Hardware Security Module (HSM), a smart card or a USB crypto-token is used to generate at least one private key, keep it always secret, and use it to carry out cryptographic operations.

11. A computer readable medium adapted to instruct a general purpose computer to generate fine granular integrity to huge volumes of data in real time at a very low computational cost, using any of the methods in claim 2.

12. A computer readable medium adapted to instruct a general purpose computer to generate fine granular integrity to huge volumes of data in real time at a very low computational cost, using any of the methods in claim 3.