A secure solution is provided to the problem of secret key agreement. In
particular, a method of reliable forward secret key sharing is disclosed
between two legitimate correspondents whose profiles match sufficiently.
The invention relies on a physical random function, sometimes referred to
as a physical unclonable function (PUF) to provide a secure solution to
the problem of secret key agreement. In one embodiment, a one-pass
protocol is introduced based on Reed-Solomon codes leading to an
unconditionally secure solution. In a further embodiment, the solution of
the first embodiment is improved upon by providing a conditionally secure
solution based on a pseudo random family of functions. In a still further
embodiment, a two-pass protocol is introduced which is used exclusively
for purposes of identification and authentication. In accordance with the
principles of the two-pass protocol, two communications are required and
unlike the one-pass protocol, the second correspondent selects the secret
key K.