[tor-talk] Chaum Fathers Bastard Child To RubberHose ... PrivaTegrity cMix

[Bryan Ford]

Travis Biehn wrote:
> It was surprising (to me) that Chaum should be the one to produce the first
> of the modern 'solving the key escrow problem' algorithms. Academia has
> been ignoring this particular problem for quite a while - I expect that
> more proposed solutions will follow, solutions that will be more difficult
> to prove insecure…

Not quite true.  Although it’s not a “hot topic” in academia, we and a few others have written a few papers exploring privacy-preserving approaches to controlled, limited data collection for law enforcement.  For example:

- “Restructuring the NSA metadata program”: http://outsourcedbits.org/2014/03/10/restructuring-the-nsa-metadata-program/
- “Secure protocols for accountable warrant execution”: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/secure-protocols-for-accountable-warrant-execution/
- “Catching Bandits and Only Bandits: Privacy-Preserving Intersection Warrants for Lawful Surveillance”: http://dedis.cs.yale.edu/dissent/papers/bandits-abs

None of these papers really suggest or call for “key escrow” or “backdoors”, especially not against general-purpose end-to-end encryption or mobile devices.  But even so, this line of research understandably tends not to get much love either from many die-hard privacy purists. :)

Cheers
Bryan