The researchers said they had struck upon a unique approach that relies on “shattering” an encryption key that is held by neither party in an e-mail exchange but is widely scattered across a peer-to-peer file sharing system.
The pieces of the key, small numbers, tend to “erode” over time as they gradually fall out of use. To make keys erode, or timeout, Vanish takes advantage of the structure of a peer-to-peer file system. Such networks are based on millions of personal computers whose Internet addresses change as they come and go from the network. This would make it exceedingly difficult for an eavesdropper or spy to reassemble the pieces of the key because the key is never held in a single location. The Vanish technology is applicable to more than just e-mail or other electronic messages Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/science/21crypto.html Saqib http://kawphi.blogspot.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majord...@metzdowd.com