Patent ID: 7213158
Filing Date: 2007-05-01
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A secure method for automatically backing up information resident on a user computer using excess capacity on a set of predetermined computers, comprising the steps of: identifying a dataset from said information to be stored, compressing the identified dataset at predetermined compression rate into a compressed dataset, redundantly encoding the compressed dataset for segmentation into a predetermined number of segments that does not exceed a number of the predetermined computers, such that a specified number of segments can recover the dataset and the specified number of segments is less than the predetermined number of segments, segmenting the encoded dataset into the predetermined number of dataset segments, encrypting each dataset segment with an encryption key, encrypting the encryption key, and appending to each encrypted dataset segment the encrypted encryption key for recovering the dataset segment, distributing each encrypted dataset segment to at least said set of predetermined computers, retrieving the specified number of encrypted dataset segments, decrypting the retrieved encrypted dataset segments, and combining the decrypted dataset segments to form the compressed dataset.