All sail, no anchor III: Risk aggregation and time's arrow

Abstract

This paper explains why protection mechanisms which distribute even the protected forms of information assets lead to increased risks. It describes a mechanism (called a "lethal secret sharing system") which enables the imposition of "forgetfulness" by an asset owner on the receiver of a protected asset. This forgetfulness, or "lethe", is enforced by allowing the asset owner to give information about a piece of knowledge to the asset receiver in such a way that the receiver can be prevented at a future time from using the knowledge to recover the information. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.