It lets you divide a message into (say) three parts, where any two parts are necessary
and sufficient to reconstruct the message. Or into seven parts, where you need all the
parts to reconstruct the message. Or whatever. The wikipedia page gives a very readable
basic introduction to how it works.
Comments
Similar in principle to Reed-Solomon coding, we have Shamir's Secret Sharing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamirs_Secret_Sharing
It lets you divide a message into (say) three parts, where any two parts are necessary and sufficient to reconstruct the message. Or into seven parts, where you need all the parts to reconstruct the message. Or whatever. The wikipedia page gives a very readable basic introduction to how it works.
Fixing your broken link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing