Experimenting with Shared Generation of RSA Keys.
Michael Malkin, Thomas D. Wu, Dan Boneh · 1999
We describe an implementation of a distributed algorithm to generate a shared RSA key. At the end of the computation, an RSA modulus N = pq is publicly known. All servers involved in the computation are convinced that N is a product of two large primes, however none of them know the factorization of N . In addition, a public encryption exponentispublicly known and each server holds a share of the private exponent. Such a sharing of an RSA key has many applications and can be used to secure sensitive private keys. Previously, the only known method to generate a shared RSA key was through a trusted dealer. Our implementation demonstrates the e#ectiveness of shared RSA key generation, eliminating the need for a trusted dealer. 1 Introduction To protect an RSA private key, one may break it into a number of pieces #shares# and store each piece at a separate location. Sensitive private keys, such as Certi#cation Authority #CA# keys, can be protected in this way. Fortunately, for the RSA cr...