We consider the problem of answering queries against a knowledge base (KB) using secrets, whenever it is possible to do so without compromising secrets. We study query answering against EL knowledge bases. We provide a polynomial time algorithm that, given an EL KB Σ, a set S of secrets to be protected and a query q or the form C(a) or r(a, b), outputs “Yes” whenever Σ q and the answer to q, to...

Alice has n secrets which she regards as equally valuable. She is willing to sell any of them to Bob, but wants to ensure that if he pays for only one secret he cannot obtain any information about the others. Bob would like to buy one of the secrets from Alice, but wants to ensure that Alice can obtain no information about which of her secrets he has obtained. The aim of an all-or-nothing discl...

This essay examines the economics of patronage and the roles of asymmetric information and reputation in the early modern reorganization of scientific activities, specifically their influence upon the historical formation of key elements in the ethos and organizational structure of publicly funded open science. The emergence during the late 16th and early 17th centuries of the idea and practice...

This paper describes biometric-based cryptographic techniques that use weak secrets to provide strong, multi-factor and mutual authentication, and establish secure channels for subsequent communications. These techniques rely on lightweight cryptographic algorithms for confidential information exchange. Lightweight algorithms are suitable for use in resource constrained environments such as the...

A shared information system is expected to comply with the following potentially conflicting requirements. On the one side it should provide useful answers to arbitrary queries, while on the other side it should preserve certain secrets according to a security policy. We study and compare two previously suggested approaches to meet these requirements, namely refusal of statements and lying . Th...

A challenge in resource-constrained sensor networks is to provide secure communication in an efficient manner, even in the presence of denial-of-service attacks. In this article, we present a simple protocol for secret maintenance between a pair of network neighbors. We claim that certain adversaries cannot compromise the current secret shared by the neighbors, nor can they cause the neighbors ...

A proactive secret sharing scheme is a method of sharing a secret among a set of participants. And, the corresponding shadows can be periodically renewed under the premise of never changing the shared secret. However, in the most existing proactive secret sharing schemes, only one secret can be shared during one secret sharing process. The proposed scheme describes PMSS, a new way to share mult...

This note analyses one of the existing space efficient secret sharing schemes and suggests vulnerabilities in its design. We observe that the said algorithm fails for certain choices of the set of secrets and there is no reason for preferring this particular scheme over alternative schemes. The paper also elaborates the adoption of a scheme proposed by Hugo Krawczyk as an extension of Shamir's ...