Improvement of Data Processing Security by means of Fault Tolerance

Abstract

This paper discusses various different solutions to the problem of reliable processing of confidential information. One of the major difficulties of this problem comes from the fact that conventional techniques for achieving reliability, on the one hand, and security on the other, tend to be in opposition to each other. The different solutions presented here have been classified in three distinct types: two are related to classical security techniques (protection, and encryption) and the third is a new technique, the fragmentation-redundancy-scattering technique, which it is claimed demonstrates a potentially advantageous unified approach to the provision of reliability and security, based on fault tolerance. Finally, a qualitative comparison of these solutions is given, taking into account both dependability, openness and performance criteria.