Patent ID: 8170216

Claim:
A machine-implemented method residing in a non-transitory computer-readable medium and for execution on a processing device, comprising: deciding, by the processing device, to divide a secret among a first total number of users; separating, by the processing device, the secret into shares, each share a different piece of the secret and a total number of the shares generated is equal to the first total number, separating further includes: generating a share set of pairwise co-prime numbers, one share set pairwise co-prime number per share and per user; producing an intermediate value for each share as a remainder that is obtained when the secret is divided by that share's pairwise co-prime number; and retaining each intermediate value for subsequent independent validation of each share; producing an intermediate value for each share as a remainder that is obtained when the secret is divided by that share's pairwise co-prime number; and retaining each intermediate value for subsequent independent validation of each share; calculating, on the processing device and for each share, a single value that permits each share to be independently validated from remaining shares and that permits each share to be re-assembled with the remaining shares to reform the secret, the calculating further includes: processing a Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT) algorithm for each share and that share's intermediate value and that share's pairwise co-prime number; producing a single CRT value for each share in response to processing the CRT algorithm; and representing the CRT value as the single value that is delivered to each user and processing the CRT algorithm further includes: generating a first equation via the CRT algorithm that produces as a first remainder the intermediate value when the CRT value is divided by a pre-established pairwise co-prime number; generating a second equation via the CRT algorithm that produces as a second remainder a particular share's pairwise co-prime number when the CRT value is divided by another pre-established pairwise co-prime number; and generating a third equation via the CRT algorithm that produces as a third remainder a control value when the CRT value is divided by a control pairwise co-prime number; and delivering, by the processing device, each single value for each share to a particular one of the users, wherein the users share the secret via each user's single value.