Change-Tolerant Method of Generating an Identifier for a Collection of Assets in a Computing Environment Using a Secret Sharing Scheme
AssigneeIrdeto B.V.
InventorsPhilip Alan Eisen, Michael James Wiener, Grant Stewart Goodes, James Muir
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Abstract
A secure and fault-tolerant, or variation-tolerant, method and system to turn a set of N shares into an identifier even when only M shares from this set have a correct value. A secret sharing algorithm is used to generate a number of candidate identifiers from subsets of shares associated with asset parameters of a collection of assets. The most frequently occurring candidate identifier is then determined to be the final identifier. The method has particular applicability in the fields of node locking and fingerprinting.
Claims37
A change-tolerant method of generating an identifier for a collection of assets associated with a computing environment, each of the assets having an asset parameter associated therewith, the method comprising:
- retrieving asset parameters for the collection of assets;
- generating a share corresponding to each asset parameter to provide a plurality of shares;
- applying a secret sharing algorithm to a number of subsets of the plurality of shares to derive a plurality of candidate identifiers, the number of subsets determined in accordance with a tolerance threshold for differences in the asset parameters as compared to original asset parameters of the computing environment;
- and
- determining a most prevalent of the candidate identifier values as a final identifier for the collection of assets.
A method of node locking to restrict execution of an application to a given computer system, the computer system having a plurality of assets, and each asset having an asset parameter associated therewith, the method comprising:
- retrieving asset parameters for the assets of the computer system;
- generating a share corresponding to each asset parameter to provide a plurality of shares;
- applying a secret sharing algorithm to subsets of the plurality of shares to derive a plurality of candidate identifiers;
- determining a most prevalent of the candidate identifier values as the system identifier for the computer system;
- and
- executing the application on the computer system in accordance with the system identifier.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instructions, which when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform a method of node locking to restrict execution of an application to a given computer system, the computer system having a plurality of assets, and each asset having an asset parameter associated therewith, the method comprising:
- retrieving asset parameters for the assets of the computer system;
- generating a share corresponding to each asset parameter to provide a plurality of shares;
- applying a secret sharing algorithm to subsets of the plurality of shares to derive a plurality of candidate identifiers;
- determining a most prevalent of the candidate identifier values as the system identifier for the computer system;
- and
- executing the application on the computer system in accordance with the system identifier.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.