Patent ID: 8891772

Claim:
At a computer system including at least one processor and a memory, in a computer networking environment including a plurality of computing systems, a computer-implemented method for allowing a user to store encrypted, third-party-accessible data in a data store, the method comprising: receiving encrypted data from a user at a data storage system, wherein the encrypted data was encrypted using a user's private key prior to having been received and the encryption having been securely completed on the user's own system; storing the received encrypted data in the data storage system according to a predefined policy, the encryption preventing the storage system from decrypting the encrypted data, the policy allowing the encrypted data to be released upon receiving at least a threshold number of requests from verified third parties; the data storage system implementing a verifiable secret sharing scheme to verify that the encrypted data can be decrypted without the data storage system having the ability to decrypt the encrypted data; and acknowledging to the user that the received encrypted data has been verified and successfully stored.