Abstract: Method and apparatus applicable to a variety of data storage, data communication, and parallel computing applications, efficiently improving information availability and load balancing. Information to be transmitted in a data signal or stored is represented as N elements of a field or computational structure, and dispersed among a set of n pieces that are to be transmitted or stored in a manner yielding no fewer than m pieces used in subsequent reconstruction.For dispersal, n vectors a.sub.i each having m elements are used and the n pieces are assembled from elements obtained as products of these vectors with m element groups taken from the N elements representing the information. For reconstruction from m available pieces, m m-element vectors .alpha..sub.i are derived from the vectors a.sub.i, and the N elements representing the information are obtained as products of these vectors with m-element groups taken from the pieces.