US 9,853,813 B2Granted

Method for securing a private key

AssigneeCrater Dog Technologies, LLC

InventorDerk Norton

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Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for securing a private key on a mobile device for use with public key cryptography. Specifically, a private key is reduced to two partial keys where the partial keys are stored on separate electronic devices. The partial keys combine to temporarily regenerate the private key for the purposes of notarizing (digitally signing) messages or documents, and decrypting a message or document that was encrypted using the corresponding public key. The partial keys in some embodiments may be a secret key, which can be derived from an account identifier and a password, and an exclusive key, which can be derived from the secret key and the private key. The private key can be regenerated from the secret key and the exclusive key. With the partial keys stored on separate devices, another layer of practical security is provided to public key cryptography.

Claims26

Dependent claims

A method for regenerating a private key k, comprising:

providing a mobile device and a wearable device having a button, and pairing the mobile device and the wearable device via a wireless communication protocol;
applying a bit-wise exclusive-or function XOR to a hash of a password value and a hash of an identification value to generate a secret key S, wherein the hash of the password value and the hash of the identification value are each bit strings having the same predetermined length, and the secret key S is stored on the mobile device,
providing a private key k associated with a public key K, wherein the secret key S and the private key k are each bit strings having the same predetermined length;
applying a bit-wise exclusive-or function XOR to the secret key S and the private key k to generate an exclusive key X, wherein the exclusive key X is stored on the wearable device;
entering an input on the mobile device to transmit the secret key S from the mobile device to the wearable device;
and
pressing the button on the wearable device to regenerate the private key k on the wearable device by applying a bit-wise exclusive-or function XOR to the secret key S from the mobile device and the exclusive key X from the wearable device.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 15/150,764Filed 10 May 2016 · us provisional application
Priority: 17 Mar 2016
Published: US 2017/0272245 A121 Sep 2017
Granted: 26 Dec 2017
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification10 codes

H04L 9/0894
Key distribution or management, e.g. generation, sharing or updating, of cryptographic keys or passwords: escrow, recovery or storing of secret…
H04L 9/0863
Generation of secret information including derivation or calculation of cryptographic keys or passwords: involving passwords or one-time passwords
H04L 9/0866
Generation of secret information including derivation or calculation of cryptographic keys or passwords: involving user or device identifiers,…
H04L 9/3247
Including means for verifying the identity or authority of a user of the system or for message authentication, e.g. authorization, entity…:…