Re: [Pearg] Fwd: [Busec] Virtual BUsec seminar Wed 9/30 at 9:45 am: Sarah Scheffler, "Protecting Cryptography from Self-Incrimination"

Hello Dave,

one working Ansatz is already there to solve this issue: it is the
possibility of having a private partition in an eg. USB stick, beneath
a "public" partition. So to hide encrypted volumes inside another (as
well encrypted) volume. In case of trying to enforce decryption, one
would just decrypt the "outer" volume, containing nothing really
important to the user. So, no way to have or get evidence of another
volume inside, which contains really confidential data, as everything
is held as random bytes on the same disk. 
Example is the tool "VeraCrypt".

Cheers,
Hein

On Sat, 26 Sep 2020 10:11:26 -0400
"David R. Oran" <daveoran@orandom.net> wrote:

> This work might be of interest to the PEARG community.
> 
> DaveO
> 
> Forwarded message:
> 
> > From: Sarah Scheffler <sscheff@bu.edu>
> > To: busec <busec@cs.bu.edu>
> > Subject: [Busec] Virtual BUsec seminar Wed 9/30 at 9:45 am: Sarah 
> > Scheffler, "Protecting Cryptography from Self-Incrimination"
> > Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2020 10:26:53 -0600
> >
> > *Date/time: *Wed 9/30 at 9:45am ET
> > *Zoom link: *
> > https://bostonu.zoom.us/j/222968851?pwd=RTBhSnVnbDhqbnFrMWRSeVU1alYyUT09
> > *Meeting ID: *222 968 851
> > *Password: *115101
> >
> > -
> >
> > *Speaker: *Sarah Scheffler
> > *Title: *"Protecting Cryptography from Self-Incrimination"
> > *Abstract: *
> > The information security community has devoted substantial effort
> > to the
> > design, development, and universal deployment of strong encryption 
> > schemes
> > that withstand search and seizure by computationally-powerful 
> > nation-state
> > adversaries. In response, governments are increasingly turning to a
> > different tactic: issuing subpoenas that compel people to decrypt 
> > devices
> > themselves, under the penalty of contempt of court if they do not 
> > comply.
> > Compelled decryption subpoenas sidestep questions around government 
> > search
> > powers that have dominated the Crypto Wars and instead touch upon a
> > different (and still unsettled) area of the law: how encryption 
> > relates to
> > a person's right to silence and against self-incrimination.
> >
> > In this work, we provide a rigorous, composable definition of a 
> > critical
> > piece of the law that determines whether cryptosystems are
> > vulnerable to
> > government compelled disclosure in the United States. We justify our
> > definition by showing that it is consistent with prior court cases.
> > We prove that decryption is often not compellable by the government
> > under our
> > definition. Conversely, we show that many techniques that bolster 
> > security
> > overall can leave one more vulnerable to compelled disclosure.
> >
> > As a result, we initiate the study of protecting cryptographic 
> > protocols
> > against the threat of future compelled disclosure. We find that
> > secure multi-party computation is particularly vulnerable to this
> > threat, and we
> > design and implement new schemes that are provably resilient in the 
> > face of
> > government compelled disclosure. We believe this work should
> > influence the
> > design of future cryptographic primitives and contribute toward the 
> > legal
> > debates over the constitutionality of compelled decryption.
> >
> > *Bio:*
> > Sarah is a fifth-year PhD student in the crypto/security group at 
> > Boston
> > University, advised by Prof. Mayank Varia. Her research examines 
> > topics in
> > the intersection of law and cryptography, as well as zero-knowledge 
> > and
> > secure messaging.
> 
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