ByteDock: Zero-Trust Consensus Storage — A Cryptographic Architecture for Auditor-Enforced File Access

ByteDock introduces a novel enterprise-grade secure storage architecture that fundamen-ally redefines file access control through cryptographic consensus rather than traditional permission systems. Built on zero-trust principles, threshold cryptography, and internal transparency ledgers, ByteDock ensures that no single entity ever possesses complete decryption authority while maintaining files in their original, unmodified formats. The architecture enforces mandatory participation by internal auditors in every access decision, creating a cryptographically verifiable chain of accountability. Unlike conventional encrypted storage systems that centralize trust in administrators or key management services, ByteDock distributes access authority across multiple independent roles through threshold secret sharing, making unauthorized access mathematically impossible even under full administrative compromise. Every file access event is recorded on an immutable internal transparency ledger, providing complete auditability and non-repudiation. This paper presents the complete cryptographic foundations, security proofs, protocol specifications, and comparative analysis demonstrating ByteDock’s superiority over existing enterprise storage solutions.