Cryptographic Tools for Advancing Civil Liberties and Human Rights in the Digital Age

在数字时代促进公民自由和人权的加密工具

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-04821
• 负责人: Henry, Ryan
• 金额: $ 2.84万
• 依托单位: University of Calgary
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=737882
• 关键词: Cryptographic; Tools; Advancing; Civil; Liberties

The Internet is a dangerous place. As the proportion of our day-to-day activities that occur online continues to grow, so too does our exposure to online privacy threats imposed by fraudsters and identity thieves, by unscrupulous marketers, by oppressive governments, and by countless unknown and unknowable others. The implications for privacy are huge: recent headlines have been dominated by news of massive data breaches, by revelations of dragnet surveillance by the NSA and other "Five Eyes" intelligence agencies, and, most recently, by investigations and speculation around precision-targeted disinformation campaigns wherein hostile foreign powers weaponize the personal information of our citizenry to manipulate and sow discord in our democratic processes. The proposed research program focuses on the intersection between applied cryptography and computer systems security. It leverages ideas from cryptography to build secure systems and tools that empower users with control over the collection, dissemination, and use of information about themselves; their beliefs, interests, and affiliations; and their day-to-day activities. This includes research all the way from low-level cryptographic primitives and their mathematical underpinnings through to the design, implementation, and deployment of the full-fledged systems-the privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs)-built from those primitives. The long-term goal of the program is to generate conceptual frameworks, cryptographic tools, and concrete systems to aid in realizing the early vision of the Internet as a "great democratizer and equalizer". To this end, my team will design and work to deploy innovative privacy-enhancing cryptographic primitives and PETs that help to protect-or even advance-not only the privacy rights of their users but also the fundamental rights of people across the globe. As three shorter-term objectives towards the above overarching goal, this proposal identifies the development of new cryptographic primitives and protocols for (i) concealing both the content and metadata of Internet communications, (ii) hiding the very existence of sensitive data stored on digital media, and (iii) disseminating information in ways that either limit censors' abilities to suppress it or, at the very least, forces such suppression to happen transparently. Positive results in any aspect of this program will have positive impacts far beyond the scientific advances it seeks to contribute both from an educational and outreach standpoint and from an industrial and societal standpoint. Specifically, the theoretical component will advance the state of scientific knowledge regarding cryptography and PETs, while the practical component will help alleviate important societal problems arising from both deployed and up-and-coming technologies and thereby provide concrete benefits to Internet users and human rights activists in Canada and around the world.

互联网是一个危险的地方。随着我们日常在线活动的比例持续增长，我们面临的在线隐私威胁也在不断增加，这些威胁来自欺诈者和身份窃贼、肆无忌惮的营销者、专制的政府以及无数未知和不可知的人。这对隐私的影响是巨大的：最近的新闻头条主要是关于大规模数据泄露的新闻，被揭露的美国国家安全局和其他“五只眼”情报机构的拉网式监视，以及最近围绕精确定向虚假信息运动的调查和猜测，在这些运动中，敌对的外国势力将我们公民的个人信息武器化，以操纵和挑拨我们的民主进程。拟议的研究计划侧重于应用密码学和计算机系统安全之间的交叉。它利用密码学的想法来构建安全的系统和工具，使用户能够控制收集、传播和使用关于他们自己的信息、他们的信仰、兴趣和从属关系以及他们的日常活动。这包括从低级别加密原语及其数学基础到设计、实现和部署由这些原语构建的成熟系统-更多的隐私增强技术(PETS)-的研究。该计划的长期目标是产生概念框架、加密工具和具体系统，以帮助实现互联网作为“伟大的民主化和均衡器”的早期愿景。为此，我的团队将设计并努力部署创新的隐私增强加密原语和宠物，帮助他们不仅保护-甚至促进-不仅保护其用户的隐私权，而且还保护全球人民的基本权利。作为实现上述总体目标的三个短期目标，该提案确定了为以下目的开发新的加密原语和协议：(I)隐藏互联网通信的原始内容和元数据；(Ii)隐藏存储在数字媒体上的敏感数据的根本存在；以及(Iii)传播信息的方式要么限制审查者压制它的能力，要么至少迫使这种压制透明地发生。无论是从教育和外展的角度，还是从工业和社会的角度，这一计划的任何方面的积极成果都将产生远远超出其寻求贡献的科学进步的积极影响。具体地说，理论部分将促进关于密码学和宠物的科学知识，而实际部分将有助于缓解已部署和即将出现的技术所产生的重要社会问题，从而为加拿大和世界各地的互联网用户和人权活动家带来具体好处。