Abstract by anuja a sonalker on Asymmetric Key Distribution

Chapter 6 
 
Conclusion 
We have presented two threshold key distribution schemes that address the need for 
confidence in an asymmetric trust environment, namely, Asymmetric Key Distribution 
(AKD) and Dual Threshold (DT) approach. While the asymmetric key distribution 
technique solves the unequal power distribution problem easily, it has some vulnerability 
due to its asymmetric nature that could be used by an intelligent enemy to its advantage if 
undetected. The Dual Threshold is an extension of AKD that improves the confidence of 
the compulsory shareholders that no authentication can occur without their participation.
We simulated an asymmetric trust environment and implemented the AKD in it for the 
purpose of experimentation and validation of our claims. Statistical measurements were 
taken to endorse the view that the AKD scheme is scalable and feasible to implement and 
provides confidence to the Special Server. General key share reuse was also 
implemented, which drastically reduced the computation effort and time required for the 
initial key share computation.
The AKD and DT schemes are best suited to medium sized organizations as opposed to 
boundless membership networks like the Internet. They are extremely helpful in solving 
asymmetric trust relationships and asymmetric consensus issues. Some examples include 
the Federal Reserve System of the United States, the UN Security Council, Parliament 
houses of the world and shareholders of a corporation. 

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The Federal Reserve Board is a stand-alone body consisting of a central governmental 
agency- a seven-member board of governors and twelve regional Federal Reserve banks. 
Together these components share responsibility for supervising and regional financial and 
currency related issues of the United States. Every committee under this structure 
comprises of the entire board of governors and presidents of five-out-of-twelve Federal 
Reserve banks on a rotating basis [21]. All policies initiated by a Federal Reserve bank 
must be approved by the board with adequate majority from the Federal Reserve banks.
The Board of Governors is analogous to the Distributed Special Server and the Federal 
Reserve Banks are analogous to the share servers.
The United Nations Security Council consists of fifteen members of which nine 
affirmations are required for a decision including concurring votes of all five permanent 
members better known as veto power [22]. The veto power can be compared directly to 
the Special Server and the other members to the share servers. In general, this scheme can 
be applied to any mid-sized corporation where executive decisions are made jointly by a 
director or a board of directors and the shareholders.
These schemes not only provide confidence in existing power sharing schemes, they also 
help reduce computation and time involved with traditional key share generation 
schemes. For example, key generation is traditionally known to be expensive in terms of 
number of operations and hence time, processing power and money. The key share reuse 
technique helped reduce the computation time, as seen from our experiments, by at least 
66 to 90% as the case may be.
Immediate future endeavors include the implementation of the conceptualized Dual 
Threshold scheme. Also, since it may not be practical to involve a Trusted Dealer in 
every scenario, we would like further implement AKD and DT without a Trusted Dealer, 
similar to the Boneh approach [23]. We will also be looking at integrating our concepts 
with existing PKI services like threshold CA [24], Security Mediator (SEM) [25], 
Multicast Security Techniques (MSTs) [26] to offer the privileges of our schemes to a 
variety of existing applications.

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