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It explains how a password can be cut up in pieces and distributed so that each piece individualy can be used to reveal the secret.

Skip to >>Shamir’s Algorithm<< section to get to the most interesting part.

The ssss unix utility does this, it's fun to use.

Docs at http://point-at-infinity.org/ssss/, demo at http://point-at-infinity.org/ssss/demo.html and it can be installed on ubuntu through the 'ssss' package, listed as ssss - Shamir's secret sharing scheme implementation.

hmm.. the article says: "If we encoded our secret with a cubic function and distributed coordinate sub-passwords it would require any combination of four points to determine the intercept and the secret."

Maybe I'm missing something here, but, taking any of the cubic function diagrams as example, what if all four coordinates have their "x" between -10 and 0? Those four coordinates will not be enough to generate the whole curve, no?

No.

As soon as you have 4 points, these 4 points uniquely define a cubic. Even if those 4 points are "right next" to eachother.

If this is difficult to imagine, it is the same with a line. Wherever you place 2 points, they always uniquely define a single line.

Unless, of course, you place 2 points exactly on top of eachother.

This is an extremely interesting and well written article. More like this please!