Crypto Idea; Multi-Part Sigs

[hfinney@shell.portal.com (Hal Finney)]

Some parts of what Christian asks about can be done; some can't.

You can't have it that each of three individuals can decrypt messages
sent to a key, while they all have to cooperate to sign messages.
Generally speaking, decryption and signing are identical in the RSA
cryptosystem.  Having enough information to do one implies teh a  the
ability to do the other.

However, you can divide a key so that people must cooperate to sign OR
decrypt.  Normally, in RSA, you choose a public exponent e, and find d,
the secret exponent, such that e*d = 1 mod (p-1)(q-1), where p and q are
the primes.  Instead, you can choose d1..d3 such that e*d1*d2*d3 = 1.
Choose d1 and d2 at random, choose e, and find d3 as in regular RSA.
Give d1, d2, and d3 to each of the three people.  Now they must apply
their exponents to the RSA block in order to sign or decrypt.

Hal Finney
hfinney@shell.portal.com