By Robert K. Ackerman Constructive key management techniques are providing information security from large networks to smart cards. Using this split key technology allows managers to provide security for distributed processing and open architecture designs, which often do not lend themselves well to the number of exclusive compartments needed. Constructive key management can be employed, for example, to design a series or a matrix that enables labeling data by content to allow selecting content identifiers. The result is document level security that is portable and scalable.
Operations can range from small local area networks to file movement over the Internet.
Military users can have secure data with a fixed header and all work performed on a work station instead of a server. This helps avoid performance degradation that can be intrinsic to other security solutions. Data separation and multilevel security are enforced through cryptography, but this key management approach is not that of a trusted operating system. If each of these four selected categories has 10 choices, managers are faced with 104 combinations of relations that could be developed in just a few seconds. Wack notes that this helps move past the n2 problem, which is common in private key.