Presented at
Still Hacking Anyway (SHA2017),
Aug. 6, 2017, 11:50 p.m.
(60 minutes).
All the pieces to make encryption easy, secure and anonymous are in widespread use. Only we're not using them properly, making it difficult for the users. In this talk, Guido will show what benefits can be gained by using existing cryptographic protocols in a slightly different configuration. Doing so makes authentication easy, community building possible and truly private messaging between strangers a reality. All without requiring the users to think about cryptography. It just works.
#Privacy #NetworkSecurity
Cryptography has always seen as difficult. Which is a shame as it does not have to be so. In fact, with the current protocols available we can make security a whole lot easier for users and more secure.
The tools to do so are available, we just need to put them in a different configuration. This gives us new possibilities:
* First we get rid of passwords and email addresses at signing up for a site. We use certificates. This makes signing up, secure anonymous and easy. We also get protection against phishing.
* Second we create a community where people exchange signed messages between them. This acts as a key exchange between them, no need to validate fingerprints or hold key-parties. With the keys people can send private messages. We do need a validation step to protect against a dishonest site-operator performing a MitM against their own users.
* Third, when people can send private messages, they can create private tunnels via Tor. Not even the site knows they're communicating. How difficult is it to setup a Tor-channel like that? It's easier than setting up the account in step 1.
By aligning cryptography along the way users interact with sites (and other people at sites), we can make crypto work for the people, not hinder them.
Building on top of the most centralised naming system - DNS, Guido builds a decentralised, anonymous, secure and above all, easy to use protocol. Easy to use for the normal user. So easy that Glenn Greenwald could have used it, making it trivial for Edward Snowden to contact him securely.
Presenters:
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Guido Witmond
Computer programmer by day, tinkerer by night. He loves to take cryptographic internet protocols apart and puts the pieces together in different order. Doing so he came up with a decentralised and anonymous authentication system build on top of DNS, the most centralised naming system.
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