Rethinking Public Key Infrastructures and Digital Certificates:
Building in Privacy
Stefan A. Brands
ISBN 0-262-02491-8
For more information, please visit
http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/BRAUHF00
[from which this is taken. PGN]
As paper-based communication and transaction mechanisms are replaced by
automated ones, traditional forms of security such as photographs and
handwritten signatures are becoming outdated. Most security experts believe
that digital certificates offer the best technology for safeguarding
electronic communications. They are already widely used for authenticating
and encrypting e-mail and software, and eventually will be built into any
device or piece of software that must be able to communicate securely.
There is a serious problem, however, with this unavoidable trend: unless
drastic measures are taken, everyone will be forced to communicate via what
will be the most pervasive electronic surveillance tool ever built. There
will also be abundant opportunity for misuse of digital certificates by
hackers, unscrupulous employees, government agencies, financial
institutions, insurance companies, and so on.
In this book Stefan Brands proposes cryptographic building blocks for the
design of digital certificates that preserve privacy without sacrificing
security. Such certificates function in much the same way as cinema tickets
or subway tokens: anyone can establish their validity and the data they
specify, but no more than that. Furthermore, different actions by the same
person cannot be linked. Certificate holders have control over what
information is disclosed, and to whom. Subsets of the proposed cryptographic
building blocks can be used in combination, allowing a cookbook approach to
the design of public key infrastructures. Potential applications include
electronic cash, electronic postage, digital rights management, pseudonyms
for online chat rooms, health care information storage, electronic voting,
and even electronic gambling.
Stefan A. Brands is Distinguished Scientist at Zero-Knowledge Systems,
Inc., Montreal, Canada. ["Peter G. Neumann" via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 18]
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