An alternative to public key encryption

Distribution of session keys is the single most important issue in encryption. The distribution problem is assumed to be complicated, and there is already a plethora of elaborate mechanisms for maintaining security, all based on interventionist strategies such as key distribution centres and certification authorities. This paper calls into question whether such elaboration is either necessary or desirable. Any form of intervention is a method of last resort. This paper proposes an alternative in which no form of third-party management whatsoever is necessary. The alternative solution is to devise means whereby the originator and recipient exchange open information prior to the transmission of the main message from which they and they alone can deduce the session key which will be used to encrypt the message. Systems which provide this facility can be broadly classified as zero knowledge systems. Within this broad category are public key systems which guard the session key by an asymmetric encryption method. This paper proposes an alternative system which eliminates the need for large primes. It can be implemented by a compact algorithm and uses small amounts of memory. The system draws on a method of generating a sequence in which the problem of tracing the sequence back to its primitives is immensely difficult. The three essential requirements of the proposed system are a unique identity string, a unique crypt string and a key management algorithm.