Perfectly secure message transmission

Abstract

This paper studies the problem of perfectly secure communication in general network in which processors and communication lines may be faulty. Lower bounds are obtained on the connectivity required for successful secure communication. Efficient algorithms are obtained that operate with this connectivity and rely on no complexity-theoretic assumptions. These are the first algorithms for secure communication in a general network to simultaneously achieve the three goals of perfect secrecy, perfect resiliency, and worst-case time linear in the diameter of the network.