Title: Going Dark, Crypto Wars, and Cryptographic Safety Valves
Speaker: Matt Tait (University of Texas at Austin)
Abstract:
After three decades of fighting "Crypto Wars," the technology community seems pretty sure the latest "Going Dark" push by the FBI to gain access to encrypted devices is doomed to fail. This is a huge mistake. Crypto-regulation isn't inevitable, but, when it comes, it'll happen fast, and we need to be prepared to shape it when it comes. To do so, we will need to think about cryptographic safety valves and the limits of security that they can provide.
In this talk, I'll talk about cryptographic safety values: a series of cryptographic primitives designed to minimize the privacy costs of law-enforcement access to encrypted devices, and how they can be used to maximize transparency and minimize privacy loss in the event that legislation mandating access to encrypted data or devices comes down the road, and why it's imperative we discuss them openly before waiting for crypto-regulation text to appear.