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The Crypto-Democracy and the Trustworthy (Position Paper)

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Data Privacy Management, Autonomous Spontaneous Security, and Security Assurance (DPM 2014, QASA 2014, SETOP 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 8872))

Abstract

In the current architecture of the Internet, there is a strong asymmetry in terms of power between the entities that gather and process personal data (e.g., major Internet companies, telecom operators, cloud providers, ...) and the individuals from which this personal data is issued. In particular, individuals have no choice but to blindly trust that these entities will respect their privacy and protect their personal data. In this position paper, we address this issue by proposing an utopian crypto-democracy model based on existing scientific achievements from the field of cryptography. More precisely, our main objective is to show that cryptographic primitives, including in particular secure multiparty computation, offer a practical solution to protect privacy while minimizing the trust assumptions. In the crypto-democracy envisioned, individuals do not have to trust a single physical entity with their personal data but rather their data is distributed among several institutions. Together these institutions form a virtual entity called the Trustworthy that is responsible for the storage of this data but which can also compute on it (provided first that all the institutions agree on this). Finally, we also propose a realistic proof-of-concept of the Trustworthy, in which the roles of institutions are played by universities. This proof-of-concept would have an important impact in demonstrating the possibilities offered by the crypto-democracy paradigm.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/martinkallstrom/memoto-lifelogging-camera.

  2. 2.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp&.

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Acknowledgments

Sébastien is supported by the Inria large scale project CAPPRIS (Collaborative Action on the Protection of Privacy Rights). Samuel is supported by the European Research Commission Starting Grant 279447, the Danish National Research Foundation and The National Science Foundation of China for the Sino-Danish Center for the Theory of Interactive Computation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Rennes 1 - INRIA/IRISA, Rennes, France

    Sébastien Gambs

  2. Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Samuel Ranellucci

  3. DIRO, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

    Alain Tapp

Authors
  1. Sébastien Gambs
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  2. Samuel Ranellucci
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  3. Alain Tapp
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sébastien Gambs .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Télécom SudParis, Evry, France

    Joaquin Garcia-Alfaro

  2. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain

    Jordi Herrera-Joancomartí

  3. Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

    Emil Lupu

  4. Universität Passau, Passau, Germany

    Joachim Posegga

  5. University of Urbino, Urbino, Italy

    Alessandro Aldini

  6. Pisa Research Area, National Research Council - CNR, Pisa, Italy

    Fabio Martinelli

  7. Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Neeraj Suri

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Gambs, S., Ranellucci, S., Tapp, A. (2015). The Crypto-Democracy and the Trustworthy (Position Paper). In: Garcia-Alfaro, J., et al. Data Privacy Management, Autonomous Spontaneous Security, and Security Assurance. DPM QASA SETOP 2014 2014 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8872. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17016-9_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17016-9_5

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