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The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

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Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#81

Post by PhaseMage »

mangeletti wrote: post #80
PhaseMage wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> private unless an eavesdropper was physically nearby. I completely agree with your post. I have an idea for how to resolve this via networking topology. Right now, TCP/IP seems to me to be an engine for centralizing power: Limited hop count and hierarchical address assignment leads to star topologies, leading to economies of scale that again support centralization. I propose a network protocol stack that encourages…

Unfortunately, the other thing that doesn't scale with this topology is the network itself. A centralized network needs to be trusted for transporting data over vast expanses of underpopulated areas, or even urban bottlenecks (e.g., LA communicating with SF)). Ignoring this fact makes most "mesh" seem like the answer, but the real answer, especially pertaining emergence, is continual improvements in encryption, etc.,…

> A centralized network needs to be trusted for transporting data over vast expanses...

Thanks for the reply!

You state this as a fact, but I've spent many hundreds of hours trying to prove to myself that it's not a fact. I think with packet switched networks, you are probably correct. Instead, I've been designing an Isochronous network protocol. If you could help me out with more concrete details on why all non-centralized networks are incapable of running at scale, it could save me a lot of time! :-)

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#82

Post by bryanhm »

jvdh wrote: post #62
bryanhm wrote: post #61

Here we have what I think is a display of an intelligent mind specialized in one area, funded by a state institution, and weak at resolving moral conflicts. Computer scientists (and any self-respecting scientists) HAVE to separate their ethics from the interests of state institutions. Phrases in the paper resembling something like "where the cryptographer has a duty to serve the public and keep their self-interest in…

Computer scientists (and any self-respecting scientists) HAVE to separate their ethics from the interests of state institutions. Why? The paper argues exactly to the opposite in the first part, describing the atomic-bomb scientists, and the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. In my opinion, cryptographers and computer scientists have ignored morally questioning their work for too long. Reality is now catching up on this, wit…

Why do scientists/cryptographers have to judge ethics for themselves? Not sure what you're asking. Bertrand Russell judged the bomb to be a danger for humanity and chose to express his own views on it.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#83

Post by jvdh »

bryanhm wrote: post #82
jvdh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computer scientists (and any self-respecting scientists) HAVE to separate their ethics from the interests of state institutions. Why? The paper argues exactly to the opposite in the first part, describing the atomic-bomb scientists, and the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. In my opinion, cryptographers and computer scientists have ignored morally questioning their work for too long. Reality is now catching up on this, wit…

Why do scientists/cryptographers have to judge ethics for themselves? Not sure what you're asking. Bertrand Russell judged the bomb to be a danger for humanity and chose to express his own views on it.

Medical ethics committees have ethicists, but the main advice is from medical experts. I would not want anybody else judging the ethics of medical experiments, as no one else has the expert knowledge. I see absolutely no reason why this should different for computer scientists and cryptographers.

No one else understands the implications of an experiment or a new methodology. I was at a meeting recently discussing ethics committees for computer science. A medical expert gave his opinion and said (paraphrasing): I fail to see the problem with digitalisation, we have had medical records on paper for years, now they are on a computer, what is the difference?

I don't mean to say that every scientist should do this individually. They should discuss this with colleagues, and with an ethics committee, which should contain subject matter experts, but also ethicists.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#84

Post by erikpukinskis »

kaybe wrote: post #35
DennisP wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not entirely the same thing. For example, if you think people have a right to privacy, one way to fight for it is to write cryptographic software, so everybody who already agrees with you can protect themselves. That doesn't require you to convince anyone who disagrees.

If you fight to win (in at least as much as keeping your freedom to encrypt), you will have to convince your government at some point. The topic won't go away and if they care strongly enough you might find yourself in your own private full-on intelligence war, and maybe in prison. At some point tech cannot help you (rubber-hose cryptography).

Law is not the only moral battlefield.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#85

Post by mangeletti »

PhaseMage wrote: post #81
mangeletti wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the other thing that doesn't scale with this topology is the network itself. A centralized network needs to be trusted for transporting data over vast expanses of underpopulated areas, or even urban bottlenecks (e.g., LA communicating with SF)). Ignoring this fact makes most "mesh" seem like the answer, but the real answer, especially pertaining emergence, is continual improvements in encryption, etc.,…

> A centralized network needs to be trusted for transporting data over vast expanses... Thanks for the reply! You state this as a fact, but I've spent many hundreds of hours trying to prove to myself that it's not a fact. I think with packet switched networks, you are probably correct. Instead, I've been designing an Isochronous network protocol. If you could help me out with more concrete details on why all non-cent…

Just a quick thought experiment (because my networking expertise is limited):

Take a single computer at the edge of town A. It's the only machine in town A that can connect to the next town B, because of the distance between town A and town B. All traffic in town A now has to route through this machine to reach town B. How will a single machine achieve this?

Even worse, what if the two towns are too far for any connection other than a centralized style connection (large wires on a pole).

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#86

Post by andreyf »

bigiain wrote: post #34
andreyf wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torture, racism, fraud, corruption: yes. Total lack of will to reform: no.

OK, take "Total" out and see if you're still happy with that answer: http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-document... It seems to me there's a tremendous lack of will to reform abuses and criminal acts by LEO. Perhaps not "Total", but so marginally less than "Total" as to be functionally equivalent (in that "not all men" kind of failure to acknowledge reality...).

There's a very strong political will to "reform" torture by the CIA (i.e. stop it), just as there was when the police did it [1]. Racism, fraud, corruption have existed and will continue to exist, and will continue to be fought viciously for many lifetimes to come, both in the US and throughout the world.

Police misconduct is real here and all over the world, as well, and will also continue to be fought. There are no quick fixes, and it's important to be outraged and voice one's outrage when we see it, but let's not give up and paint all LO with one brush, as their existence most certainly contributes a net positive to society.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding#By_U.S._police_b...

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#87

Post by arghnoname »

PhaseMage wrote: post #77
nathan_long wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. And even longer ago, all conversations required meeting, and were private unless an eavesdropper was physically nearby. Tech has created more extreme possibilities on both sides. On the privacy side, it's possible to exchange messages at a distance in an unreadable and nearly undetectable way. On the surveillance side, it's possible to eavesdrop on nearly everyone (except the very sophisticated). We can't…

> private unless an eavesdropper was physically nearby. I completely agree with your post. I have an idea for how to resolve this via networking topology. Right now, TCP/IP seems to me to be an engine for centralizing power: Limited hop count and hierarchical address assignment leads to star topologies, leading to economies of scale that again support centralization. I propose a network protocol stack that encourages…

I think the typical approach to the bottleneck issue with regard to traffic analysis attacks is that the machines on the edges can act as mixes. They can essentially launder traffic from within their respective meshes so that any intermediary between them can't do attribution. Of course, you have to trust the mix! So what then? Then communication to them has to be encrypted and onion routed, and moreover, continuously sent (even if what is encrypted is the message, "No data here dummy, this is just chaff") and then that has to be sent along, all so the mix doesn't know that you're actually communicating anything.

It's a whole category of research really. Papers like Herd at Sigcomm and Vuvuzela at SOSP are the two latest I've seen and following references there should be helpful. I think if you look at Herd there are a few tricks in there to lower the cost of all of the chaff with the superpeers (or whatever they call them, I read it a while ago). A hybrid system that mixes meshnet schemes for local peer to peer traffic with secret sharing schemes and mixnets for more disparate networks seems workable to me. The question is what benefits does the meshnet provide over the mixnet style schemes?

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#88

Post by kaybe »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #84
kaybe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you fight to win (in at least as much as keeping your freedom to encrypt), you will have to convince your government at some point. The topic won't go away and if they care strongly enough you might find yourself in your own private full-on intelligence war, and maybe in prison. At some point tech cannot help you (rubber-hose cryptography).

Law is not the only moral battlefield.

Could you elaborate? I think I do not understand your point.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#89

Post by PhaseMage »

mangeletti wrote: post #85
PhaseMage wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A centralized network needs to be trusted for transporting data over vast expanses... Thanks for the reply! You state this as a fact, but I've spent many hundreds of hours trying to prove to myself that it's not a fact. I think with packet switched networks, you are probably correct. Instead, I've been designing an Isochronous network protocol. If you could help me out with more concrete details on why all non-cent…

Just a quick thought experiment (because my networking expertise is limited): Take a single computer at the edge of town A. It's the only machine in town A that can connect to the next town B, because of the distance between town A and town B. All traffic in town A now has to route through this machine to reach town B. How will a single machine achieve this? Even worse, what if the two towns are too far for any conne…

If you arbitrarily define any large wire on a pole as being "centralized", then sure, but I wouldn't agree with that definition. For example, I can lease long distance point to point dark fiber for my personal use, and run whatever combination of wavelengths and protocols that I want on it.

In the case where there is only one link between two towns, then the owner(s) of the switches at either end of that link will be able to charge a monopoly price for the bits that get sent across it. Market forces will soon encourage others to create additional links between the two towns.

In the bootstrapping phase of my plan, the case of a single link between two cities would be impossible: Network participants would create tunnels through the IP Internet (with the obvious downside of higher latency and cost).

Back to my original question: Should I be spending my time on this? You claimed that crypto was a better route because mesh doesn't scale. I'm not a crypto genius, but I do consider myself a reasonably proficient systems software engineer. I feel that if I could design a scaleable mesh network protocol stack, many of the problems we're discussing become tractable. What do you think?

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#90

Post by pcl »

PhaseMage wrote: post #89
mangeletti wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a quick thought experiment (because my networking expertise is limited): Take a single computer at the edge of town A. It's the only machine in town A that can connect to the next town B, because of the distance between town A and town B. All traffic in town A now has to route through this machine to reach town B. How will a single machine achieve this? Even worse, what if the two towns are too far for any conne…

If you arbitrarily define any large wire on a pole as being "centralized", then sure, but I wouldn't agree with that definition. For example, I can lease long distance point to point dark fiber for my personal use, and run whatever combination of wavelengths and protocols that I want on it. In the case where there is only one link between two towns, then the owner(s) of the switches at either end of that link will be…

I think mesh doesn't scale is a pretty valid network assumption, in the general case.

So. Maybe an interesting question is: What sorts of applications and protocols will work in a mesh topology? That set might be interesting. For example, you could imagine big chunks of Nextdoor working well in a mesh topology, since it's already a geo-limited social graph by design.

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