Key-lock pair mechanism for access control using tribes of Farey fractions

Abstract

We propose a new single key-lock mechanism based on the concept of an access control matrix. In this system, each file is given a lock and each user is given a key and through simple operations on keys and locks the user access privilege can be revealed. We use Chinese Remainder theorem and tribes of Farey fractions in this method instead of the method based on Euler’s Theorem of Number Theory used by Chang [2]. An advantage of our method is the ease with which coding can be done for the locking mechanism and for the much larger number of users and files.