Outline by Patrick Dean, April 2005
Ch.9 Cryptography, Secrets, and the Structuring of Trusts
David J. Phillips
With the development of networks to process data, came cryptographic techniques of data protection. These techniques have yielded on extraordinary ability to keep secrets. With developing techniques rises the question of who is to regulate this power.
Trust on a social level is an individual/organization relying on another individual/organization to act on its own behalf. (medicine, law, finance)
Cryptography is "secret writing" via data scrambling. Trustees are guardians of trust
Technology is culture made and "embodies, fixes, and stabilizes social relations." (pg.248)
Actors use resources to shape and influence socio-technical change (i.e. economic resources, access to policymaking and influence, cultural resources).
Basic building blocks of cryptographic protocols
Algorithm
Plain text
Key
Cipher Text
Three fundamental Ideas in Cryptography
Trapdoor one-way/one-way functions— Easy to compute, but much harder in reverse (i.e. x2 easier than ?x). Trapdoor one-way function that is easy to compute backwards given certain information.
Symmetric cryptography—Same key system. The idea is that a key unlocks the encrypted message and only the sender and receiver have a key. Problems arise because keys multiply with each new pairing.
Public-key cryptography—This system is the idea of a single public key for all with a private key for each individual to unlock the message. There is also the reverse system which just reverses the multi-key system.
Five axes of trust
Key length—Difficulty of encryption grows linearly while brute force decryption grows exponentially
Access to cryptographic algorithms and expertise—Public access to keys or chips in devices that automatically decrypt the message. (pg.263)
Access to keys—Key-management systems. How the obtaining of keys is made possible, and how the access to multiple keys works
Jurisdictional Trust—Between jurisdictions with influence and agencies.
Anonymity or identification—Public-key management systems. How the sender is identified and if the sender is able to remain unidentified. (pg. 270)