4 ms·

What type of technology would allow us to be absolutely certain that a piece of information was only used for an explicit purpose? My first thought was a chain

by jtchang 13y ago

What type of technology would allow us to be absolutely certain that a piece of information was only used for an explicit purpose? My first thought was a chain of custody with public/private key encryption for viewing the information. Perhaps file systems that record access?

espeed 13y ago
Not specifically for general data tracking, but when I read this the first technology that sprang to mind was Ben Adida's (http://ben.adida.net/ http://ben.adida.net/) Helios Voiting system (http://heliosvoting.org/ http://heliosvoting.org/): "When you cast a vote with Helios, you get a smart tracker to track your vote all the way to the tally. No one knows how you voted, but you can track your vote and everyone can check the tally. "
jbert 13y ago
It's analagous to media DRM. Nothing "works" if the user has admin access on the viewing device. And the only way to ensure that is a "trusted computing" chain all the way from processor boot. Which is possible, but you have to lock out any viewers who can't demonstrate a secure chain from boot to viewing app (so you can trust the viewing app is "yours" rather than the device owners). And there's always the analog hole. Unless you can rely on a 'Eurion' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation)-like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation)-like mark to stop recording, people can always capture data at the point of display-to-retina. The only other approach is the after-the-fact blamethrower, where you tag each copy steganographically so that you know who was the original source of any leaked or circulated copies. That wouldn't stop a Snowden though.
- jaekwon 13y ago
  Yes, and probably the biggest hole is simply mod'ing the surveillance software with backdoor unauditable access to the data, such that higher ups with "special secret privileges" can bypass the logs. Who audits the software? etc.
- whatusername 13y ago
  Isn't the display-to-retina capture handled by physical security? Ie -- aren't most top-secret (not sure the exact classification but you know what I mean) facilities controlled in regards to what electronic equipment you can take inside?
  - jbert 13y ago
    Yes, good point. But it all depends on level of risk, type and amount of data etc. You don't need any electronics for a film camera. Or any metal, for that matter. It's a risk to take such an item in, but maybe it's worth it for your use case. And I guess if it's small amounts of text, there's always human memory (or writing on your skin?). So you are (obviously I guess) trusting the people accessing the data to not abuse it, "helping" that trust with whatever technical countermeasures make it harder to move bulk data.
SilasX 13y ago
You can't. It's not a technical problem, because you can always log access. The problem is trusting the logger to be configured properly and to correctly report results. I pointed this out on the original HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5964763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5964763
mlinksva 13y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5964721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5964721

by jtchang 13y ago

espeed 13y ago

Not specifically for general data tracking, but when I read this the first technology that sprang to mind was Ben Adida's (http://ben.adida.net/ http://ben.adida.net/) Helios Voiting system (http://heliosvoting.org/ http://heliosvoting.org/): "When you cast a vote with Helios, you get a smart tracker to track your vote all the way to the tally. No one knows how you voted, but you can track your vote and everyone can check the tally. "

jbert 13y ago

It's analagous to media DRM. Nothing "works" if the user has admin access on the viewing device. And the only way to ensure that is a "trusted computing" chain all the way from processor boot. Which is possible, but you have to lock out any viewers who can't demonstrate a secure chain from boot to viewing app (so you can trust the viewing app is "yours" rather than the device owners). And there's always the analog hole. Unless you can rely on a 'Eurion' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation)-like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation)-like mark to stop recording, people can always capture data at the point of display-to-retina. The only other approach is the after-the-fact blamethrower, where you tag each copy steganographically so that you know who was the original source of any leaked or circulated copies. That wouldn't stop a Snowden though.

jaekwon 13y ago
Yes, and probably the biggest hole is simply mod'ing the surveillance software with backdoor unauditable access to the data, such that higher ups with "special secret privileges" can bypass the logs. Who audits the software? etc.
whatusername 13y ago
Isn't the display-to-retina capture handled by physical security? Ie -- aren't most top-secret (not sure the exact classification but you know what I mean) facilities controlled in regards to what electronic equipment you can take inside?
- jbert 13y ago
  Yes, good point. But it all depends on level of risk, type and amount of data etc. You don't need any electronics for a film camera. Or any metal, for that matter. It's a risk to take such an item in, but maybe it's worth it for your use case. And I guess if it's small amounts of text, there's always human memory (or writing on your skin?). So you are (obviously I guess) trusting the people accessing the data to not abuse it, "helping" that trust with whatever technical countermeasures make it harder to move bulk data.

SilasX 13y ago

You can't. It's not a technical problem, because you can always log access. The problem is trusting the logger to be configured properly and to correctly report results. I pointed this out on the original HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5964763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5964763

mlinksva 13y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5964721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5964721