7 ms·

The moral character of cryptographic work (2015)

86 points by TheBigRoomXXL 3y ago

barathr 3y ago
Those interested in this topic might also find a couple other papers by Phil interesting: 1. Practice-Oriented Provable Security and the Social Construction of Cryptography: https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/cc.pdf https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/cc.pdf 2. An Obsession with Definitions (Section 5): https://books.google.com/books?id=SwOkDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA18&ots=bMtIgWHprB&dq=%22I%20am%20constructing%20a%20definition%22%20rogaway&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=SwOkDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA18&ots=...
- keepamovin 3y ago
  I thought about something related quite a lot. Developing a cryptographic hash^1 and some of the reactions were entirely dismissive. Hostile as if (not against me per se, but) almost against the idea of developing crypto outside of the Church. As if Scripture forbade such a blasphemy even being considered, or as if making new tech was a Denial of Service against the Priests who need to review every Miracle and Revelation for sanctified inclusion within the Cannon. Or whatever. I formed my thoughts into a deliberately indirect dissection of this, and now I repost here: Thanks for your input! I hadn't realized my post had made it to the subreddit since it was immediately removed, so it slipped my mind. Anyway, it's not really related to what you said, but I'll take your remarks as a starting point to have a riff / use as springboard for a thought that's been brewing: Hearing you say that seasoned cryptographers wouldn't even bat an eye at this surprised me. I'd thought those well-versed in this domain could glance at an idea, scan the smhasher results, and almost intuitively know whether there's potential there or not. I imagined they'd have a sort of gut feeling, something like "this holds promise" or "this won't cut it," directing their decision to delve further. So, why is it such a challenge for non-experts to make substantial contributions? It seems as though there's an unspoken rule prohibiting it. I suppose this isn't unique to cryptography; it probably exists in any specialized field, like bioinformatics. Yet, there's a distinction - when an outsider steps into a bioinformatics forum with innovative ideas and some groundwork, they're likely to find a receptive audience. But with cryptography, it feels closed off. It's as if only certain individuals are permitted to work on specific topics within established parameters, and only an elite few are qualified to assess this work. It's reminiscent of religious doctrine where deviation is considered heresy and swiftly dismissed. This leads me to question who's guiding the crypto field to limit creative contributions and why? Who stands to benefit from curbing the development of new algorithms and preventing their widespread adoption? Who might be disadvantaged by a sudden surge of new, potentially powerful crypto algorithms? It's a challenging balance to strike. Personally, I think the current system could be improved. As an impartial observer with no stake in the outcome, I see this as an intriguing creative outlet. I'm not advocating for a revolution and frankly, I'm not particularly concerned if things stay as they are. However, I do believe that when a field becomes too closed, we all stand to lose. Here's the intriguing part: while the field is theoretically open, in practice, it mimics a closed one, similar I suppose to the restrictions and veil of esoterica surrounding nuclear technology. But nobody openly discusses this closed-off nature, which only adds to the strangeness. I understand why it's structured this way, but I can't help thinking there could be a better approach. Given the diverse interests involved, it's challenging to identify what that might be. Surely, I can't be alone in thinking this way, right? 1: https://dosyago.github.io/rain/ https://dosyago.github.io/rain/
  - msla 3y ago
    The problem with developing your own cryptography is that it's easy to make something you can't crack but which has holes an experienced cryptographer could drive a bus through. A false sense of security is worse than no security at all. Plus, of course, most people who claim to have a Bold New Encryption Algorithm are selling the absolute worst kind of snakeoil, like XORing the input with a single fixed-length key over and over again, because they know most of their victims will be even less knowledgeable than they are. The outright frauds poison the make-your-own cryptography field for the honest ignoramuses. The field isn't closed off, either. It's just founded on mathematics that's beyond what the average untrained or semi-trained person reaches, especially the ones who feel entitled have Big Opinions on the subject. However, if some can't grasp the mathematical underpinnings of contemporary cryptography, their opinions of how cryptography ought to be done are worth less than nothing. Mathematics isn't a democracy, ignorance doesn't get a vote.
    - russfink 3y ago
      We call such a system “secure against the chosen cryptanalyst.”
    - eru 3y ago
      Oh, and even trained mathematicians have a hard time coming up with good new cryptographic primitives. Many of the candidates fail.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - keepamovin 3y ago
      This is the old Schneier textbook defense that anyone can make a cipher they themselves can’t break, therefore don’t try, yet doesn’t hold water here. Not that it’s not true when applied to a certain group of oil de serpenthe salesmen, or to noobs making toys, but it obfuscates the reality of outsider talent by unhelpfully conflating complete frauds with budding learners with enthusiastic amateurs with experienced amateurs. And reinforces the notion of a priest class, upon which amateurs, encountering the same, should abandon their labors and despair. It’s also a surprisingly hostile way to treat interested budding cryptanalysts and cryptographers. It is a kind of hazing designed not to forge bonds but verily to discourage. As in: We only want insiders creating crypto and there’s a reason for that; and in the main it’s not about protecting against flawed security; in fact, this reason is about protecting our ability to break. Protecting this crucial vital main and security mission of the high priests at the top of this hierarchy (who, nevertheless veil their faces in the shadows: the mages’ hood) is the reason for the weird, captured nature of this field. And because this little aphorism comes from The Book of Bruce, none dare question for fear of being tarred a heretic and cast out. Luckily, for me, an outsider has no such fear: being already on the outside. And hence is revealed a weakness of the little system of forced organization. Aside from that, such discouraging attitudes and aphorisms, obscure the fact that analyzing new primitives is difficult. And they conceal the truth that, it’s not so much that tech created by amateurs has no merit, it’s that it may. And this maybe, makes the job that much harder for the code breakers; the mages; The “surveillance state” that this posted HN article, under which I am adding this comment, rails against. The code mages would much rather everyone stick to a predefined set of spells that follow the designated parameters of good sense and civility, which i suspect coincides not a small amount with the technical exploitation window of the secret code breakers. Indeed some are secretly designed to be broken: one way designs, unbreakable, unless you possess the kernel, upon which a more elaborate design was scaffolded for release. The designer-in-secret retains the secret kernel. It seems I’ve had to be more direct than I’ve initially desired to explain my point. It’s hard to do cryptanalysis, and the experts who do it have limited resources, so they don’t want to have to deal with a deluge, so they architect an academic culture empowered with these cutsie aphorisms to further those ends, as well as capture, guide, curtail and direct the fields search from the shadows. Coercive funding withholding is but one means. The strongest is a culture and acolytes with a fanatical devotion to the orthodoxy that sustains this control. I understand the complexity of the balance that needs to be struck, but i think with these deceptively closed and captured fields, we all lose out. At least nuclear secrets is open about just how closed it is and why: it’s a weapon a small club of states wield, and no one else. Crypto in reality is the same. It’s a shield wielded by the state, not by the public. The public gets, not security nor privacy, but what the regulator deems them safe to have. This situation cannot be admitted because it dispels the illusion that the field is open and not captured. And also the illusion of privacy and security not being monopolized by the state. I’m not sure of the exact best balance, but I don’t think the current system is the best. Perhaps a better balance is crypto being more like nuclear secrets, where it’s open about how closed it actually is rather than deceptively, in the vein of the snake oil salesman, posturing a security that is not, in fact, delivered. If not ignored this notion will, unfortunately, provoke, understandably, furious reactions from both those who depend on the belief and the security, as well as those in the captured industry, who would rail against it, but cannot do so, thus turn their frustrated expression towards any who expose their embarrassing constraint. I have no vested interest either way, except in the good of everybody…and I think it’s high time for this discussion to be advanced in a better direction. Government transparency, and accountability depends on clarity with, and consideration towards, the public who depend on them.
dang 3y ago
Related: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34451250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34451250 - Jan 2023 (9 comments) The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28086917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28086917 - Aug 2021 (15 comments) The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10673055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10673055 - Dec 2015 (93 comments)
klabb3 3y ago
Agree with the general point. It’s one of few subfields which is about reducing “interop”, or what is allowed to be done within a system. Auth(n,z) are also in that domain, yet perhaps not academic fields in their own right. Interestingly, this is also true for DRM, which is also political but does not protect individuals, generally. So restricting what “can be done” as a political expression depends on the “for who?”, even if the tech itself is inanimate and neutral.
- PerryCox 3y ago
  This is a very realistic take on the subject. From an academic perspective it is a tool to be used as any other and gaining knowledge on how to better protect data is worthwhile and provides value to humanity as a whole. DRM is one use that does not favor consumers, on the other hand we have encryption being used in apps like Signal to provide the same high quality software to every day consumers. I'm very interested in quantum computers, specifically ones powerful enough to break AES and other types of modern encryption. What will that mean for humanity and individuals?
  - thiagoharry 3y ago
    As far as I know, there are no known quantum attacks that break the security of AES. It is unknown if they are able to turn AES insecure, like they do to RSA and discrete logarithm problems. And there are several post-quantum candidate alternatives to replace RSA and crypto algorithms that would break under quantum attacks. Quantum computers break several security assumptions. But not all of them and we usually can replace the broken assumptions. Discovering that P=NP, or that one-way functions do not exist, on the other hand, would imply that several secure cryptographic constructions that we want to use are in fact impossible and would be a much scarier discovery.
    - js8 3y ago
      Practical P=NP is a very real possibility (I am just testing a new algorithm) and (IMHO) not that scary. I am of the opinion that the advantages of P=NP far outweigh the disadvantages. People tend to focus on the latter, because that's the world we currently live in. Even if we focus on crypto only, from the perspective of people being oppressed around the world, it would be far better for them to be able to see what is being done by the powerful publicly rather than not. This is essential for transparency, which is essential for democracy. I don't reject the ideals of e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Declaration_of_the_Independence_of_Cyberspace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Declaration_of_the_Independe..., but I believe that the technological solution through cryptography is not tenable, and if we got rid of cryptography, it would actually level the playing field.
hackermatic 3y ago
This and "Security Engineering as Caring-For" [0] have been the guideposts in my security career, helping me think about what I should work on (or not) and reminding me why I keep working on bad days. Essays like these aren't just moral admonishments; they offer a way to find deeper meaning in your work or figure out what work would have meaning for you. Personally and politically, there can be so much more to your tech career than just "puzzles and math." [0] https://noncombatant.org/2016/03/27/security-as-caring-for/ https://noncombatant.org/2016/03/27/security-as-caring-for/
jryio 3y ago
Rogaway was my professor of cryptography at Davis. Amongst his peers he focuses strongly on the ethics of his work, noticing and calling attention to ethical failings by students and professors alike, as well as mentoring students for their future careers. He also teaches a call called "Ethics in an age of technology". The reading list is that of a philosophy professor rather than a cryptographer. I could not more highly recommend engaging with this surprisingly "unrelated" material. https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/spring23/ https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/spring23/ Rogaway challenged us in small group settings to explore not the implications of computers and the internet, but if technology itself on humanity. I.e the automobile, industrialization, printing press, etc. Thank you Phil, you've changed my life for the better
- jrexilius 3y ago
  Sounds like a great professor. "Think about what you are doing" is probably good advice for any discipline.
- sifar 3y ago
  Ellul's The Techonological Society should be on that reading list. I have found it to be a thorough analysis of what technology is and it's impact on society and individual.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
> Cypherpunk-styled creations — think of Bitcoin, PGP, Tor, and WikiLeaks—were to be transformative because they challenge authority and address basic freedoms: freedom of speech, movement, and economic engagement. I know it's not a widely accepted view on HN but you shouldn't downvote just because you hate cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and Ethereum (Ethereum which has switched to proof-of-stake, now consuming a negligible amount of energy) are actually two semi-successes of the cypherpunks. They were created as challenges to authority and released as free for anyone to use. What happened next is open for discussion but I don't think the intentions were bad.
- c_crank 3y ago
  The intentions were not malicious, but they were poorly thought out. The way these coins either trend towards matching stock market trends or going to zero was inevitable based on their design.
- trinsic2 3y ago
  I reject the idea of crypto currencies in its current form because it only offers an illusion of freedom from a corrupt fractional reserve financial system. The systems that are built on top of of this infrastructure, at its roots, attempts to turn everything into a commodity. It's an inherently flawed principle and I think many people that frequent HN are smart enough to see that.
sramsay 3y ago
I take a more skeptical view of the relationship between politics and technology (not specifically on cryptography, though I think my point stands in this context) in a recent (scholarly) article: https://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/2/000690/000690.html https://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/2/000690/000690.htm... Abstract: A consideration of the political meaning of software that tries to add greater philosophical precision to statements about the politics of tools and tool building in the humanities. Using Michael Oakeshott's formulations of the “politics of faith” and the “politics of skepticism,”[Oakeshott 1996] it suggests that while declaring our tools be morally or political neutral may be obvious fallacious, it is equally problematic to suppose that we can predict in advance the political formations that will arise from our tool building. For indeed (as Oakeshott suggests), the tools themselves give rise to what is politically possible.
motohagiography 3y ago
While I am not a professor, apparently I get to say I was cryptographer according to this paper (albeit accidentally). Normal software developers take on pressure to manage technical debt, where engineers are pressured to reduce costs against safety and reliability. In finance, they get pressure to fudge models to hide risk. In security and cryptography, the pressure is the ethical pressure to be the one who takes the shortcut only you and your business sponsor undersand, which weakens the scheme in favour of some other economic purpose, or worse a political one. To work professionally in privacy and cryptography is adversarial to the point of being gladiatorial, where there are very serious (and sometimes dangerous) interests involved. This work is not for the meek. The moral aspect of it is that you need a belief in truth and the value of personal integrity that would sabotage most other careers. When you design security protocols, you are engaged in governance by other means. With real government and the economy using the internet as its substrate, using math and technical reasoning to moderate their more extreme urges is a kind of moral responsibility. Not to pontificate too much, but when I was a kid wanting to become a hacker, it was because it represented a way to be an ethical steward operating outside these systems. Not a gatekeeper or spoiler, but someone whose skills maintain a balance. In a career as a hacker working on these problems in govt, I did good work that I think has kept some specific totalitarian urges in check, by depriving them of the certainty and impunity an abuser requires. I tell younger people working in Privacy in govt that it is the only place in the public sector where demonstrating courage is the job. This is a great paper, and almost a decade later I would observe that if you want to really make a difference in the world where you can secure the freedom for yourself and others to really flourish and be a benefit to humanity, finding ways to practice the triad of math, courage, and compassion together is the indomitable x-factor. Each without the other are useless, but the person using them together is often history's most decisive actor, imo.
LiamCooper234 3y ago
[dead]

86 points by TheBigRoomXXL 3y ago

Those interested in this topic might also find a couple other papers by Phil interesting: 1. Practice-Oriented Provable Security and the Social Construction of Cryptography: https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/cc.pdf https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/cc.pdf 2. An Obsession with Definitions (Section 5): https://books.google.com/books?id=SwOkDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA18&ots=bMtIgWHprB&dq=%22I%20am%20constructing%20a%20definition%22%20rogaway&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=SwOkDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA18&ots=...

keepamovin 3y ago
I thought about something related quite a lot. Developing a cryptographic hash^1 and some of the reactions were entirely dismissive. Hostile as if (not against me per se, but) almost against the idea of developing crypto outside of the Church. As if Scripture forbade such a blasphemy even being considered, or as if making new tech was a Denial of Service against the Priests who need to review every Miracle and Revelation for sanctified inclusion within the Cannon. Or whatever. I formed my thoughts into a deliberately indirect dissection of this, and now I repost here: Thanks for your input! I hadn't realized my post had made it to the subreddit since it was immediately removed, so it slipped my mind. Anyway, it's not really related to what you said, but I'll take your remarks as a starting point to have a riff / use as springboard for a thought that's been brewing: Hearing you say that seasoned cryptographers wouldn't even bat an eye at this surprised me. I'd thought those well-versed in this domain could glance at an idea, scan the smhasher results, and almost intuitively know whether there's potential there or not. I imagined they'd have a sort of gut feeling, something like "this holds promise" or "this won't cut it," directing their decision to delve further. So, why is it such a challenge for non-experts to make substantial contributions? It seems as though there's an unspoken rule prohibiting it. I suppose this isn't unique to cryptography; it probably exists in any specialized field, like bioinformatics. Yet, there's a distinction - when an outsider steps into a bioinformatics forum with innovative ideas and some groundwork, they're likely to find a receptive audience. But with cryptography, it feels closed off. It's as if only certain individuals are permitted to work on specific topics within established parameters, and only an elite few are qualified to assess this work. It's reminiscent of religious doctrine where deviation is considered heresy and swiftly dismissed. This leads me to question who's guiding the crypto field to limit creative contributions and why? Who stands to benefit from curbing the development of new algorithms and preventing their widespread adoption? Who might be disadvantaged by a sudden surge of new, potentially powerful crypto algorithms? It's a challenging balance to strike. Personally, I think the current system could be improved. As an impartial observer with no stake in the outcome, I see this as an intriguing creative outlet. I'm not advocating for a revolution and frankly, I'm not particularly concerned if things stay as they are. However, I do believe that when a field becomes too closed, we all stand to lose. Here's the intriguing part: while the field is theoretically open, in practice, it mimics a closed one, similar I suppose to the restrictions and veil of esoterica surrounding nuclear technology. But nobody openly discusses this closed-off nature, which only adds to the strangeness. I understand why it's structured this way, but I can't help thinking there could be a better approach. Given the diverse interests involved, it's challenging to identify what that might be. Surely, I can't be alone in thinking this way, right? 1: https://dosyago.github.io/rain/ https://dosyago.github.io/rain/
- msla 3y ago
  The problem with developing your own cryptography is that it's easy to make something you can't crack but which has holes an experienced cryptographer could drive a bus through. A false sense of security is worse than no security at all. Plus, of course, most people who claim to have a Bold New Encryption Algorithm are selling the absolute worst kind of snakeoil, like XORing the input with a single fixed-length key over and over again, because they know most of their victims will be even less knowledgeable than they are. The outright frauds poison the make-your-own cryptography field for the honest ignoramuses. The field isn't closed off, either. It's just founded on mathematics that's beyond what the average untrained or semi-trained person reaches, especially the ones who feel entitled have Big Opinions on the subject. However, if some can't grasp the mathematical underpinnings of contemporary cryptography, their opinions of how cryptography ought to be done are worth less than nothing. Mathematics isn't a democracy, ignorance doesn't get a vote.
  - russfink 3y ago
    We call such a system “secure against the chosen cryptanalyst.”
  - eru 3y ago
    Oh, and even trained mathematicians have a hard time coming up with good new cryptographic primitives. Many of the candidates fail.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - keepamovin 3y ago
    This is the old Schneier textbook defense that anyone can make a cipher they themselves can’t break, therefore don’t try, yet doesn’t hold water here. Not that it’s not true when applied to a certain group of oil de serpenthe salesmen, or to noobs making toys, but it obfuscates the reality of outsider talent by unhelpfully conflating complete frauds with budding learners with enthusiastic amateurs with experienced amateurs. And reinforces the notion of a priest class, upon which amateurs, encountering the same, should abandon their labors and despair. It’s also a surprisingly hostile way to treat interested budding cryptanalysts and cryptographers. It is a kind of hazing designed not to forge bonds but verily to discourage. As in: We only want insiders creating crypto and there’s a reason for that; and in the main it’s not about protecting against flawed security; in fact, this reason is about protecting our ability to break. Protecting this crucial vital main and security mission of the high priests at the top of this hierarchy (who, nevertheless veil their faces in the shadows: the mages’ hood) is the reason for the weird, captured nature of this field. And because this little aphorism comes from The Book of Bruce, none dare question for fear of being tarred a heretic and cast out. Luckily, for me, an outsider has no such fear: being already on the outside. And hence is revealed a weakness of the little system of forced organization. Aside from that, such discouraging attitudes and aphorisms, obscure the fact that analyzing new primitives is difficult. And they conceal the truth that, it’s not so much that tech created by amateurs has no merit, it’s that it may. And this maybe, makes the job that much harder for the code breakers; the mages; The “surveillance state” that this posted HN article, under which I am adding this comment, rails against. The code mages would much rather everyone stick to a predefined set of spells that follow the designated parameters of good sense and civility, which i suspect coincides not a small amount with the technical exploitation window of the secret code breakers. Indeed some are secretly designed to be broken: one way designs, unbreakable, unless you possess the kernel, upon which a more elaborate design was scaffolded for release. The designer-in-secret retains the secret kernel. It seems I’ve had to be more direct than I’ve initially desired to explain my point. It’s hard to do cryptanalysis, and the experts who do it have limited resources, so they don’t want to have to deal with a deluge, so they architect an academic culture empowered with these cutsie aphorisms to further those ends, as well as capture, guide, curtail and direct the fields search from the shadows. Coercive funding withholding is but one means. The strongest is a culture and acolytes with a fanatical devotion to the orthodoxy that sustains this control. I understand the complexity of the balance that needs to be struck, but i think with these deceptively closed and captured fields, we all lose out. At least nuclear secrets is open about just how closed it is and why: it’s a weapon a small club of states wield, and no one else. Crypto in reality is the same. It’s a shield wielded by the state, not by the public. The public gets, not security nor privacy, but what the regulator deems them safe to have. This situation cannot be admitted because it dispels the illusion that the field is open and not captured. And also the illusion of privacy and security not being monopolized by the state. I’m not sure of the exact best balance, but I don’t think the current system is the best. Perhaps a better balance is crypto being more like nuclear secrets, where it’s open about how closed it actually is rather than deceptively, in the vein of the snake oil salesman, posturing a security that is not, in fact, delivered. If not ignored this notion will, unfortunately, provoke, understandably, furious reactions from both those who depend on the belief and the security, as well as those in the captured industry, who would rail against it, but cannot do so, thus turn their frustrated expression towards any who expose their embarrassing constraint. I have no vested interest either way, except in the good of everybody…and I think it’s high time for this discussion to be advanced in a better direction. Government transparency, and accountability depends on clarity with, and consideration towards, the public who depend on them.

dang 3y ago

Related: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34451250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34451250 - Jan 2023 (9 comments) The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28086917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28086917 - Aug 2021 (15 comments) The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10673055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10673055 - Dec 2015 (93 comments)

klabb3 3y ago

Agree with the general point. It’s one of few subfields which is about reducing “interop”, or what is allowed to be done within a system. Auth(n,z) are also in that domain, yet perhaps not academic fields in their own right. Interestingly, this is also true for DRM, which is also political but does not protect individuals, generally. So restricting what “can be done” as a political expression depends on the “for who?”, even if the tech itself is inanimate and neutral.

PerryCox 3y ago
This is a very realistic take on the subject. From an academic perspective it is a tool to be used as any other and gaining knowledge on how to better protect data is worthwhile and provides value to humanity as a whole. DRM is one use that does not favor consumers, on the other hand we have encryption being used in apps like Signal to provide the same high quality software to every day consumers. I'm very interested in quantum computers, specifically ones powerful enough to break AES and other types of modern encryption. What will that mean for humanity and individuals?
- thiagoharry 3y ago
  As far as I know, there are no known quantum attacks that break the security of AES. It is unknown if they are able to turn AES insecure, like they do to RSA and discrete logarithm problems. And there are several post-quantum candidate alternatives to replace RSA and crypto algorithms that would break under quantum attacks. Quantum computers break several security assumptions. But not all of them and we usually can replace the broken assumptions. Discovering that P=NP, or that one-way functions do not exist, on the other hand, would imply that several secure cryptographic constructions that we want to use are in fact impossible and would be a much scarier discovery.
  - js8 3y ago
    Practical P=NP is a very real possibility (I am just testing a new algorithm) and (IMHO) not that scary. I am of the opinion that the advantages of P=NP far outweigh the disadvantages. People tend to focus on the latter, because that's the world we currently live in. Even if we focus on crypto only, from the perspective of people being oppressed around the world, it would be far better for them to be able to see what is being done by the powerful publicly rather than not. This is essential for transparency, which is essential for democracy. I don't reject the ideals of e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Declaration_of_the_Independence_of_Cyberspace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Declaration_of_the_Independe..., but I believe that the technological solution through cryptography is not tenable, and if we got rid of cryptography, it would actually level the playing field.

hackermatic 3y ago

This and "Security Engineering as Caring-For" [0] have been the guideposts in my security career, helping me think about what I should work on (or not) and reminding me why I keep working on bad days. Essays like these aren't just moral admonishments; they offer a way to find deeper meaning in your work or figure out what work would have meaning for you. Personally and politically, there can be so much more to your tech career than just "puzzles and math." [0] https://noncombatant.org/2016/03/27/security-as-caring-for/ https://noncombatant.org/2016/03/27/security-as-caring-for/

jryio 3y ago

Rogaway was my professor of cryptography at Davis. Amongst his peers he focuses strongly on the ethics of his work, noticing and calling attention to ethical failings by students and professors alike, as well as mentoring students for their future careers. He also teaches a call called "Ethics in an age of technology". The reading list is that of a philosophy professor rather than a cryptographer. I could not more highly recommend engaging with this surprisingly "unrelated" material. https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/spring23/ https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/spring23/ Rogaway challenged us in small group settings to explore not the implications of computers and the internet, but if technology itself on humanity. I.e the automobile, industrialization, printing press, etc. Thank you Phil, you've changed my life for the better

jrexilius 3y ago
Sounds like a great professor. "Think about what you are doing" is probably good advice for any discipline.
sifar 3y ago
Ellul's The Techonological Society should be on that reading list. I have found it to be a thorough analysis of what technology is and it's impact on society and individual.

TacticalCoder 3y ago

> Cypherpunk-styled creations — think of Bitcoin, PGP, Tor, and WikiLeaks—were to be transformative because they challenge authority and address basic freedoms: freedom of speech, movement, and economic engagement. I know it's not a widely accepted view on HN but you shouldn't downvote just because you hate cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and Ethereum (Ethereum which has switched to proof-of-stake, now consuming a negligible amount of energy) are actually two semi-successes of the cypherpunks. They were created as challenges to authority and released as free for anyone to use. What happened next is open for discussion but I don't think the intentions were bad.

c_crank 3y ago
The intentions were not malicious, but they were poorly thought out. The way these coins either trend towards matching stock market trends or going to zero was inevitable based on their design.
trinsic2 3y ago
I reject the idea of crypto currencies in its current form because it only offers an illusion of freedom from a corrupt fractional reserve financial system. The systems that are built on top of of this infrastructure, at its roots, attempts to turn everything into a commodity. It's an inherently flawed principle and I think many people that frequent HN are smart enough to see that.

sramsay 3y ago

I take a more skeptical view of the relationship between politics and technology (not specifically on cryptography, though I think my point stands in this context) in a recent (scholarly) article: https://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/2/000690/000690.html https://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/2/000690/000690.htm... Abstract: A consideration of the political meaning of software that tries to add greater philosophical precision to statements about the politics of tools and tool building in the humanities. Using Michael Oakeshott's formulations of the “politics of faith” and the “politics of skepticism,”[Oakeshott 1996] it suggests that while declaring our tools be morally or political neutral may be obvious fallacious, it is equally problematic to suppose that we can predict in advance the political formations that will arise from our tool building. For indeed (as Oakeshott suggests), the tools themselves give rise to what is politically possible.

motohagiography 3y ago

While I am not a professor, apparently I get to say I was cryptographer according to this paper (albeit accidentally). Normal software developers take on pressure to manage technical debt, where engineers are pressured to reduce costs against safety and reliability. In finance, they get pressure to fudge models to hide risk. In security and cryptography, the pressure is the ethical pressure to be the one who takes the shortcut only you and your business sponsor undersand, which weakens the scheme in favour of some other economic purpose, or worse a political one. To work professionally in privacy and cryptography is adversarial to the point of being gladiatorial, where there are very serious (and sometimes dangerous) interests involved. This work is not for the meek. The moral aspect of it is that you need a belief in truth and the value of personal integrity that would sabotage most other careers. When you design security protocols, you are engaged in governance by other means. With real government and the economy using the internet as its substrate, using math and technical reasoning to moderate their more extreme urges is a kind of moral responsibility. Not to pontificate too much, but when I was a kid wanting to become a hacker, it was because it represented a way to be an ethical steward operating outside these systems. Not a gatekeeper or spoiler, but someone whose skills maintain a balance. In a career as a hacker working on these problems in govt, I did good work that I think has kept some specific totalitarian urges in check, by depriving them of the certainty and impunity an abuser requires. I tell younger people working in Privacy in govt that it is the only place in the public sector where demonstrating courage is the job. This is a great paper, and almost a decade later I would observe that if you want to really make a difference in the world where you can secure the freedom for yourself and others to really flourish and be a benefit to humanity, finding ways to practice the triad of math, courage, and compassion together is the indomitable x-factor. Each without the other are useless, but the person using them together is often history's most decisive actor, imo.

LiamCooper234 3y ago

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