For Perfect Security (and Data Resilience) … Here’s Shamir Secret Shares and Rust

Shamir’s secret sharing method generates a number of shares, of which a threshold defines the number of shares which can be used to re-build the message. It is, in its purest form, a method that gives perfect security, as you cannot determine anything about the original data unless you have enough of the shares to meet the threshold. So let’s match, Shamir’s Secret Shares (SSS) with a highly secure programming language: Rust.

Shamir’s Secret Shares

In 1979, Adi Shamir (who represents the “S” in RSA) created a secret sharing algorithm that allows a secret to be split into parts, and only when a number of them are added together will the original message be created (paper). In these times when we need to integrate trust, his algorithm has many application areas.

So let’s take an example … let’s say that there are six generals who have control over firing a missile, and there are three bases, with two generals on each base. Unfortunately, we are worried that one of the generals might make a rash decision, so we agree that the generals will not get the secret password to fire the missile. We are also worried that a base could be taken over by a malicious force, so we agree that no two generals will be able to gain the password. So to overcome…