Events

Lawful Device Access without Mass Surveillance Risk

Among the more controversial topics at the intersection of public policy and technology concerns government access to the contents of encrypted devices (e.g., cell phones).  It is a conflict that inherently pits individual rights (i.e., securing our data against unauthorized access) against collective rights (i.e., the court system’s need to support lawful investigations).  This conflict has driven a divide between those in the law enforcement community who have argued that new technical measures are necessary to ensure that a lawful access capability can be maintained and civil libertarians who argue that any potential technical measures will open the door to mass surveillance and inherently weaken security against other threats.

However, this topic, in its modern form, has had very little exploration by the research community and thus most of the debate around this issue has remained abstract and highly polarized – filled with loaded terminology (e.g., backdoors vs “Going Dark”), appeals to authority and refutations of strawmen.  In this talk, I will try to provide a counterpoint by describing a particular concrete design – one that makes explicit tradeoffs to try and simultaneously support many lawful investigatory interests while explicitly curtailing risks of mass surveillance.  I will explain the motivation for the tradeoffs I describe, the assumptions on which they rely and some of the interesting research questions that remain open.