Fighting Crime with Mathematics: a Blockchain Solution
Fighting Crime with Mathematics: a Blockchain Solution
FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION
A home-grown, patent pending system named Asymmetric bc resolves Australia’s encryption debate with blockchain technology. And it’s available right now.
In July this year, Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.” He was referring to government access to encrypted information. Encryption providers simply ignored him. There just isn’t a way to break into information encrypted using properly designed, end-to-end encryption systems.
No matter where you sit on the privacy spectrum, the misuse of strong cryptography by criminals is a problem. We’re privacy nerds, and left libertarians, and we think so. But society can’t put the end-to-end encryption genie back in the bottle – nor should we want to. If we did, we’d be at risk from other criminals. None of our bank transactions, or online purchases would be safe.
Mathematics 1 – Australia 0.
On Tuesday, the Federal Government unveiled new laws aimed at helping the nation’s spy agencies and police monitor and prevent criminal activity through phones and the internet. This was supposed to be the laws of Australia trumping the laws of mathematics. Unfortunately, it’s something of an own goal.
In the new legislation, encryption providers can be required – under force of a warrant – to “help” Australia break into encrypted communications. The problem is, nothing has changed – it’s still impossible to do.
Mathematics 2 – Australia 0.
Thankfully, right here in Oz, there a potential solution. The technique is called key escrow, and the [now patent pending] system is called Asymmetric bc. Asymmetric bc stores a specially encrypted version of a user’s private key in the blockchain, when the user first registers to use a new system.
The way it works is that the user’s private key is encrypted using a public key provided by a beneficiary, such as the Feds, on the device where it is created. The resulting ciphertext is then encrypted using the public keys of one or more referees, and the result is then stored in the blockchain. In the future, when the beneficiary wants access to a user’s messages, they first ask the referee, who removes their encryption. Then the beneficiary removes their encryption, and the key is exposed.
We call this process Matryoshka Overlocking, after the nested Russian dolls.
The beauty of Asymmetric bc is its simplicity. It nestles into the registration phase of any existing encryption system, with just a few lines of code, without affecting any of its subsequent encryption. There are no backdoors to weaken encryption. There’s no complex redevelopment work for vendors to satisfy Australia.
It [almost] makes Malcolm Turnbull right. What the law of Australia must do, in this case, is to use the laws of mathematics, to provide a second path for key information.
Literally, think around the problem.
www.lightblueblockchain.com
For more information, please contact Steve Asher on +61 400 763 445. Email [email protected]
PS – we’ll license it to the Commonwealth for free.
PPS – Thanks to the Bibbulmun people of the Noongar country of south-western Australia, custodians of the land this code was written on.