Operation
Initially:
- a client program (program) on a system (local system) with data to back up or archive generates a random private key PRIV
- program creates a public key PUB based on PRIV
- program stores PUB on the local system
- program presents PRIV to user who can store the key, e.g. printed as a trusted paper key, or on a memory card
- program destroys PRIV on the local system
When archiving or creating a backup, for each session or file:
- program generates a one-time random key OTRK
- program encrypts data using OTRK and a symmetric encryption method
- program encrypts the (optionally padded) key OTRK using PUB to OTRKCR
- program stores the OTRKCR and the encrypted data to a server
- program destroys OTRK on the local system
- program destroys OTRKCR on the local system
- the server stores OTRKCR and stores the encrypted data
To restore backed up or archived data:
- user feeds PRIV into program
- program downloads data with the respective OTRKCR
- program decrypts OTRKCR using PRIV, giving OTRK
- program decrypts data using OTRK
- program destroys PRIV on the local system
Read more about this topic: Offline Private Key Protocol
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”
—Francis Bacon (1560–1626)
“It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. The only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name of “Wut,” is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“It is critical vision alone which can mitigate the unimpeded operation of the automatic.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)