From: Mike Markley <mmarkley@microsoft.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 17:37:19 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Multikey crypto
Message-ID: <9401270136.AA13570@netmail2.microsoft.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Since I am relatively new to the field of encryption forgive me if this 
is a FAQ.

Has anyone ever done anything with an encryption scheme that allows 
multiple unlocking keys? What I'm thinking about is a way to encrypt 
some data and then create multiple keys that will decrypt the data. I 
want to be able to encrypt a document and then give multiple people 
access to the document and be able to lock out a key and/or generate 
new keys without having to redistribute keys to everybody that already 
has one. I realize that this makes it easier to attack the encrypted 
information since there are multiple keys to unlock the data but I 
don't consider this a big problem. If someone wants to throw heavy duty 
horsepower at the problem they will crack it eventually anyway.

Mike

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Mike Markley              || The opinions here do not represent the
mmarkley@microsoft.com    || opinions of my employer. Attempts to
			  || associate the two are pointless.

   "I want to look at life, In the available light"
					- Neil Peart -