Abstract: Based on elliptic curve cryptography, a novel (t,n) threshold secret sharing scheme is proposed. Each participant’s private-key is used as his secret shadow and the secret dealer does not have to distribute each participant’s secret shadow. In the secret distribution phase, the dealer only needs to compute some public values without sending any information to each participant. And in the secret recovery phase, each cooperative participant only needs to submit a verifiable pseudo-shadow instead of his secret shadow. The trusted center to manage participants’ keys is eliminated and no secret communication is required in the secret distribution phase, so the scheme is characterized by excellent security as well as high efficiency.

Key words: elliptic curve cryptography, secret sharing, threshold scheme