A Move to Secure Data by Scattering the Pieces

uler writes: The NY Times has written (registration required) about an interesting new open source storage project. Unlike data storage mechanisms today that work 'by making multiple copies of data,' the Cleversafe software takes an "approach based on dispersing data in encrypted slices." It's an elegant solution and one that's been a long time coming: the software uses algorithmic techniques known by mathematicians since the 70's. Adi Shamir (of RSA) first wrote of information dispersal is his 1979 paper 'How to Share a Secret (pdf).'