Sunday, July 24, 2016: 1:00 pm (Friedman): Decentralized network architectures can protect against vulnerabilities not addressed by strong encryption. Encryption works well, but only when private keys can be kept secret and ciphertext can get to its destination intact. Encrypted messages can be surveilled by acquiring private keys (FBI and Lavabit/Apple), man-in-the-middle attacks (NSA QUANTUM), or censored by blocking communication entirely (Pakistan and YouTube). These attacks are difficult to protect against because they are social rather than technological. But they all have one thing in common: they require centralization. Censorship and man-in-the-middle attacks target communication bottlenecks and legal coercion targets a small number of legal entities. This talk will discuss decentralized approaches to attack tolerance, including ongoing original research.

Ed Platt