Secret information distribution

The distribution of secret information so that no one knows which information is being passed to whom, such as in a poker game or the like, is an important issue for security. Secret information distribution is expected to have applications in key distribution, electronic voting, and so on. A secret information distribution method must maintain the secrecy and untraceability of the distributed content, without requiring any effort on the part of the recipient. In this paper, the authors propose a distribution method, using third-party organizations, in which the recipient can easily receive the distribution without having to engage in any of the distribution work itself; the distribution work can be divided among any number of third-party organizations in order to diffuse the danger, and thus untraceability and secrecy are maintained so long as there is no collusion or fraud among all the organizations. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 3, 90(8): 9– 17, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecjc.20308