CAREER: Legitimacy through Cryptography

为了维护自己的合法性，法国国王被见证，并在公共场合醒来、洗澡和穿衣。美国国会实施了一项信息自由法，为公民审计政府创造了方法。这些例子表明，传统上，组织如何通过披露协议来建立其合法性。但披露信息有其实际限制；即使是组织也需要一点隐私。该项目旨在通过用更微妙的加密协议取代披露协议来平衡对合法性和隐私的需求。尽管经过充分研究的密码协议可以帮助实现这一目标，但必须解决几个关键挑战。作为一个概念上的挑战，这个项目研究了加密协议的使用如何可能无意中引入了个人通过串通作弊的方法。最终的目标是消除这种现象。作为一项实施挑战。该项目提出了一种将特殊密码协议的高级规范转换为实现的原则性方法。最后，作为一个效率挑战，该项目研究了一种有前途的协议设计的“乐观理性”方法，该方法可以显著降低通信复杂性。总而言之，这个项目研究了组织可以用来通过分析新的模式、新的组织沟通方式和新的实施方法来建立其合法性的方法。为了传播这些想法，该项目的教育活动包括课程开发、向高中教师延伸，以便将密码学中的想法融入他们的课程、与高中生直接互动、开发隐私工具和指导。

To assert their legitimacy, French kings were borne under witness, and awoke, bathed, and dressed in public. America's Congress implemented a Freedom of Information Act to create methods for citizens to audit their government. These examples show how traditionally, organizations establish their legitimacy through protocols for disclosure. But disclosure has its practical limits; even organizations need a modicum of privacy. This project aims to balance the needs for both legitimacy and privacy by replacing disclosure protocols by more nuanced cryptographic ones. Although well-studied cryptographic protocols can help achieve this goal, several key challenges must be addressed. As a conceptual challenge, this project studies how the use of cryptographic protocols may inadvertently introduce ways for individuals to cheat by colluding. The eventual goal is to eliminate this phenomena. As an implementation challenge. this project proposes a principled way to transform high-level specifications of special cryptographic protocols into implementations. Finally, as an efficiency challenge, this project studies a promising ``optimistic rational'' method for protocol design that can dramatically reduce communication complexity. In summary, this project studies methods organizations can use to establish their legitimacy by analyzing new models, new ways of organizing communication, and new methods for implementation. To disseminate these ideas, this project's educational activities include course development, outreach to high school teachers so that ideas from cryptography can be woven into their lessons, direct interaction with high school students, development of privacy tools, and mentoring.