Slashdot Mirror
Protecting Online Identity Through Cryptography
A new startup, Credentica, hopes to offer the ability for you to perform secure transactions using the smallest amount of personal information possible. Their goal is to both protect privacy and enhance security, which they hope will be a mutually inclusive process. "The technique employs secure multi-party computation, a branch of cryptography that can calculate meaningful answers about secret information by knowing only some non-revealing clues about that secret. The underlying theory was demonstrated in 1982 by Andrew Yao in the so-called Millionaire's Problem [...] U-Prove employs an ID token, a special kind of digital certificate that allows for minimal selective disclosure. The tokens can store all kinds of information, but users can disclose only the minimum amount of data required in any given transaction. They leave no unwanted data trails and permit both anonymity and pseudonymity."
Why should good, upstanding citizens of the world need espionage tools like this? Whose interests is this supposed to serve? Not anyone good.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Unfortunately it is all too easy to accomplish identify theft via some very uncomplicated and low-tech methods. People still click on links in emails and type their financial information into fake websites or answer questions over the phone to the nice IRS man who wants to send me a tax rebate. However, I do applaud any effort to protect folks identities.
http://www.busyweather.com/
And to steal a few movies while we're at it. Perp a scam on ebay. Stalk children. Whay else? We are cuplrits that must hide in plain sight.
Tools like these will do more do help consumers. People that really have things to hide are doing just fine with things like PGP and other encryption standards. I hope that products like this, implemented and used well, would go a long way to help the kinds of people that have no idea online-privacy is an issue...
Millionaire's Problem: Alice and Bob want to find out who has more money without disclosing the amount of their fortunes to each other, or even to a mutually trusted third party. By applying special functions to their information that disguised it, Yao proved that each could know who was richer without either revealing their true holdings.
No wonder Millionaires are so stupid... if this is what they consider a "Problem"...
Actually something like this could be a good compromise between those who do statistical research and the ever growing collection of data.
I also see the potential for even worse identity theft, from what I gather the gist of it is basically instead of asking you exactly what is required, its now asking you stuff related to what is required?
Sort of like, they need to know that you are 21, so they ask you what your Grad year was, and what school you went to instead of how old are you?
Maybe I dont get it, but it seems like a possibility of "Personality" theft not just Identity theft...
Forget about security on any large (sort of large) anything. Look at this site...you are immediately penalized for being anonymous.
What a load of shit.
Bahsfl bqaaf ba azxmx amvpoax. Taekf alkjoxk sdkg a sfba skl ba sdfd qassbm oqpla vse bmxislke.
And I mean it, too!
Table-ized A.I.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Tools like these COULD do more do help consumers. [fixed it for you]
:-)
Really, do you think Amazon or Google or somesmallretailer.com will settle for asking the minimum amount of information necessary to complete a transaction?
They already ask for more info than they need, presumably for 'security' purposes [ie, so someone isn't using your credit card to buy a bunch of Dells for orphans in Russia], but they just happen to keep using that data for marketing purposes. And now that they are already collecting all this information, they have a vested interest to keep getting this information, because they know it's valuable, both within their own company and to sell to other companies.
Today, businesses, together with Visa/Amex/Mastercard could set up a system so you, Joe Consumer, would just need to authenticate yourself to V/A/M, and the V/A/M web site would generate a one-time code that can be used for a purchase up to X dollars, and you just paste it into, say MacMall's web site, say with your email address, MacMall validates the number with V/A/M for the purchase amount, and then sends you an email with the download link/registration code for some software you just purchased. Do you realistically think MacMall would go for a system like this?
It would take one of two things to get a system like this going:
1) Consumers, en mass, would need to demand the online shops they shop at use systems like this instead of the ones they already have. And stop shopping online until the online stores actually implement these new systems. Likelyhood of this happening: 0.00001% There just isn't enough people that are passionate enough about their privacy, relative to the people who shop online just to avoid the lineups at the big box store.
2) Some hacker steals the identity of every member of congress and senator in the US, from some online store they all use, screws their credit and blatantly taunts all of them about doing it. Then then does it again to another online store they all use after they fix their identities and get the first store to fix it's security, and taunts them again. And then taunts all of them again. They then legislate the Online Privacy Act of 2050. Likely of this happening: 1%. Basically, someone who wants improved privacy online would need to do this to get them to do it. Of course, this is a high-risk proposition for that person
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Online Drug Trade
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Can't the missing information be calculated ?
In order to interact with me, you'll need to disclose all of your private credentials.
Kind of like how facebook lets you have lots of control over applications but only one about what level of data applications can get when you add them: all of your data.
Well that's one way to get the message out without being penalized by the cabal.
Data for financial transactions on most sites is processed separately from the rest of the data provided. I think it would be feasible to make a system beneficial and transparent to both sides. I would like to think that an online merchant does not have any additional utility from having my CC#, as long as they know I paid, and know it was me. I agree that a quick mass adaptation of a system like this would not be the best, and I would absolutely not feel comfortable with a single company running it all, but someone needs to start doing something to protect the average consumer. It will be a cat and mouse game forever, but it does not mean the merchant/consumer/bank side should stop moving.
"1) Consumers, en mass, would need to demand the online shops they shop at use systems like this instead of the ones they already have. And stop shopping online until the online stores actually implement these new systems."
Well considering all the open source stories over the past year, I;d say it's open sources responsability to step up to the plate.
"They already ask for more info than they need, presumably for 'security' purposes [ie, so someone isn't using your credit card to buy a bunch of Dells for orphans in Russia], but they just happen to keep using that data for marketing purposes. And now that they are already collecting all this information, they have a vested interest to keep getting this information, because they know it's valuable, both within their own company and to sell to other companies."
Yeah, well! customer Service will always be in a balancing act with the information needed to make it a good experience.
Another issue is that such tokens may be forged. What are the safeties in place to verify that it isn't forged?
Forged identities are likely to be abused by those that really doesn't want to be on the map, like terrorists and major drug dealers. The latter can probably afford a lot to be anonymous - even cracking/theft of the encryption keys in place for the token.
Real security will not be obtained until any instance that makes use of the personal data takes measures to double-verify the person when an actual transaction takes place. You may say that the social security number shall be protected etc. but that is only the key to the information store that can reveal your identity. If that store is used to verify your credentials it's a lot harder for any abusers to gain access to your money or perform illegal transactions using your name.
Of course - some may not trust the government to protect you as a person, and for some governments that may be right. But it's always possible to get under the radar for some time. And by storing the right data on each level it shall still allow for individual protection against abuse. The government already has all records of you that it needs like place of birth etc. It may even have your fingerprints and DNA on file, even if you don't know it yet. The social security number is the key that allows for access to this information store. A national ID will do the same, it's a key that allows anyone to verify your identity to have the correct means to do that. The catch is that in most cases it's never used as a key, it's used as proof itself and that can be abused. For small transactions that's never a problem, and who really cares if X rents a video Y with some fake ID as long as it's returned?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
REALLY INTERESTING: http://www.spymac.com/details/?2339829
For people who want background or just enjoy math, Brands's book is Rethinking Public Key Infrastructure.
Why would any business want to use it? The bar that scans your drivers license gets some valuable information in the process. The porn site that asks for your credit card information to verify your age gets a credit card that they can use or sell. The bank that you ask for a loan gets all sorts of information, all of which it can sell or use to market itself. The current situation is bad for the customer, but the customer isn't the one who decides what verification system is used. None of this will change until large numbers of people refuse to do business with companies that demand more information than they need. And that's never going to happen.
and neither is privacy. This company is going to have a very hard time selling a solution to a problem they won't admit to. Most companies that gather information consider it a resource, and would rather gather it and promise privacy, than to not gather it and actually provide privacy.
Consumers might adopt a solution like this if it were up to them, but I doubt anyone would pay for it, and no, this does require cooperation of both parties, so it is not up to them, and will not work independently on the consumer side.
"Bush is just a victim of inbreeding, and being spoiled. "Its not what you know, its who you know" thats how he got to where he is."
Damn! All I know are Slashdotters. Boy am I so screwed.
Hey, if the identity thief really wants to show up as me at my high school reunion, that's fine by me. And with my credit card details, he'd damn well be renting an expensive car to drive up in. Now I (well, at least the thief posing as me) can be finally be the cool, popular kid!
The notion of comparing two integers without knowing both simultaneously (or knowing intermediate results from which original
numbers could be derived) sounds impossible. Can someone explain how the problem is solved in plain English (since IANA crypto expert).
I realize the proposed solution covers personal data in general, and not just CCs. However, with regards to CCs, all I want are one-time keys. Every transaction with your CC should require the owner to manually setup a one-time-use key before making the transaction. And I'm talking about ME providing keys, not some stupid system auto-generating them. Or at the very least, PIN numbers like debit cards.
Of course, such a system is guaranteed to be too complicated for non-techies (and the elderly) to use. Whatever the solution, charging $1000 on a credit card MUST BE made more difficult than simply possessing the card (and in some cases, not even that). A CC #, expiration, and CVV code is not sufficient. It's absurd that we still rely on signatures for "security".
My first 2 jobs as a teen were at McDonald's and Wal-Mart. The merchant slip that employees keep contains the full credit card number, and it wouldn't take any brains to be able to memorize the expiration and CVV. I've also worked for Cingular (aka AT&T), and guess what folks? Every Cingular/AT&T employee has access to your full SSN. As someone who simply had to pass a basic criminal record check, I had access to your full name, addresses, full SSN, and when you call to make a payment, your credit card details (including CVV cause you have to give that too).
Imagine that, one phone call to AT&T customer support, and your life can be over.
They do not provide anonymity. They have your IP address and other data.
What they provide will thwart some identity theft attacks (you can still steal the passwords and become that person and do whatever they can do on the new startup).
It's a good idea - maybe - it's slashdotted so I can't check out the SDK.
This is not the first use of multi-party computation. MPC is probably the most advanced cryptographic tool theoretical crypto has produced in the last 35 years. (The strongest flavour being Universally Composable MPC). Also, though the intuitive concept of secure MPC was introduced by Yao the later results of Goldreich, Micali and Wigderson in their 1986 paper How to Play Any Mental Game is the one upon which modern MPC is based and the result which is usually cited in cryptographic literature. (My guess is the wired article author got the bit about Yao from wikipedia.) It is in this paper that the security requirements of such a protocol are first formally described using what is now called the ideal/real paradigm. Essentially a secure protocol computing some joint functionality of all players inputs should be as secure as if there where a totally honest trusted third party who would gather their input, compute the function and privately hand the outputs back to all players. (This paradigm is probably at least as important a contribution to modern crypto as the actual MPC protocol they presented in the paper.)
The problem with MPC protocols is that since they are so very general and powerful they tend to also be horribly inefficient (though polynomially bounded (i.e. in P). Never the less the constant are often horrible and could require on the order of n^2 rounds of communication. Another hurdle in their wider adoption in the field of security is that they represent a significantly more complicated concept then say encryption or a hash function and so tend to be a difficult sell to non-cryptographers.
However at least one company, Cryptomathics of Aarhus, Denmark are working on an implementation of MPC. The main client being the danish government which wants to use the product to setup an online market through which local farmers can to sell there goods. The idea being that by using an MPC protocol to do this rather then some central (government run) server no body needs to trust anyone else, not even the government; just their own implementation of the software on their computers. As long as that is correct and uncorrputed they are guarenteed all the security they could hope for.
Of course there is always the argument that you might well be better off trusting the government to host the entire show then your own computer, but on the other hand even IF the government runs some online auction server, you still need to connect to that remote system from your own computer. So a secure server is still not going to help you protect yourself from local corruptions. At least now that is the ONLY thing left to worry about.
During the pre-Web 1.0 days, there used to be something called as SET (Secure electronic transaction) Protocol for online payments. It worked by securing the credit card information which was only seen by the merchant's bank and not by the merchant himself. Hence, reducing theft of data and other blah. However, it failed to take off as it required additional infrastructure and internet users were daunted with certificates and e-wallets (a browser plugin).
As I see, credentica has some kind of SDK. How would the provisioning of identity work? Not very clear (there website is down with a 403 right now, guess slashdotting is still a bane!).
I worked at a web shop once, where clients use passwords to access their online accounts,
At the time the database stored passwords in cleartext (guess they haven't heard of hashing then). When doing some work of course I can see everyone's passwords. People choose funny passwords. There's the obvious "password", "<my name>", or whatever.
But there was one that was a strange 9 digit number. Later when I had a chance to talk to that person on the phone I got to learn that his password was his SSN. I didn't have to ask (I didn't even need it), he volunteered it to me when asking for help.
He said "It's a good password because nobody knows what my SSN is!"
Good lord some people are fucking stupid.
Unfortunately it is all too easy to accomplish identify theft via some very uncomplicated and low-tech methods. People still click on links in emails and type their financial information into fake websites or answer questions over the phone to the nice IRS man who wants to send me a tax rebate.
Far lower tech than that -- much identity theft is still accomplished through dumpster diving, mailbox theft, over-the-shoulder snooping, and many other techniques that have been around since way before the Internet.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Or, say, give all their information to a website which claims it will keep it secure and only send companies the information they need?
</cynical>
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
There are plenty of simple things we could be doing already to make transactions more anonymous and secure, but companie and governments like getting all that information, and they collude to force customers to provide it.
To the asshole who tagged the article `terroristsdream': terrorism is not an excuse to erode our right to privacy. Fuck off.
I think that Americans are hypocrites. who value privacy, but basically do nothing to insure it's protected.
Simply put, this will not take off until businesses and corporations that warehouse our personal data are held financially liable for any losses that occur related to that data. Right now there is way too much positive financial incentive to hold onto as much consumer data as a company can, and almost no incentive not to. This situation will have to be reversed before companies will invest in a technology such as this.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
When you pay with a credit card outside they make you verify the billing zip code. That's it. It's enough information to verify that you are either the primary card holder or know the person well enough to know their zip code. It's not cryptography in any sense but it does implement the concept of least necessary information rather well. They could ask for a lot more... your SSN or DOB for instance... but for the purposes of buying gas a zip code is just the right amount of info.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Wikipedia description link ZK proof:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_knowledge_proof
You are talking about the SIMAP project which I am part of. SIMAP is short for Secure Information Management and Processing, see http://simap.dk/ (Danish only). An English article will soon be up on Eprint.
The Danish government that was not involved in the auction -- it was an auction where sugar beet farmers traded their production quotas for producing beets for Danisco, the only company producing sugar in Denmark.
The auction finished last month and was a great success for all involved parties. It was possible to run the auction because of modern protocols that require only a logarithmic number of rounds (by "round" I mean a network round-trip). The logarithm is in the bit-length of the input numbers, so for 32-bit inputs you will need ~5 rounds. The auction used the comparison by Tomas Toft, available in his PhD Progres Report: http://www.daimi.au.dk/~tomas/publications/progress.pdf
The SIMAP code is not (yet) online -- instead I can point you to a library for multi-party computation made by myself: http://viff.dk/. VIFF implements the same comparison protocol that was used in the SIMAP auction, as well as other primitives allowing you to do general MPC. VIFF is written in Python and is available under the GPL.
That's a fairly profound viewpoint. The fact is that people deploying enterprise software are looking for strong Value.