COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PERFORMING COMPUTATIONAL TASKS ACROSS A GROUP OPERATING IN A TRUST-LESS OR DEALER-FREE MANNER

摘要

The invention relates to secure determination of a solution (S) to a computational task by a dealer-free threshold signature group. Access to a resource or reward is offered in exchange for the solution. The method enables individuals in said group to work together in a trust-less, or dealer-free manner. To achieve this, individuals generate their own key pair and use their public key to establish with the group an initial shared public key that they can all use, in parallel, to find a solution to the task. Their own private keys remain secret and, therefore, the collaboration is trust¬less, and operates efficiently, because a verified shared public key is created using the initial shared public key that was used when a solution is found and verified. The resource or reward can be secured by the verified shared public key. Because the private keys of each participant were used in the determination of the initial shared public key that lead to the solution then participants must then collaborate to unlock the resource or reward because the corresponding shared private key can only be generated by all participants or a pre-agreed threshold of participants. Efficiency is achievable by using an initial shared public key and calculating with the group a verified shared public key after the solution has been found. The invention enables the task to be trust-less by using the homomorphic properties of elliptic curve cryptography when applying Shamir's secret sharing scheme. The inventive concept resides in the secure, trust-less and efficient way in which a group can collaborate. The invention can be agnostic to the task.