[Cryptography] Darpa wants a secure messaging app based on blockchains

[Henry Baker]

At 12:33 PM 4/26/2016, Jerry Leichter wrote:
>>> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/darpa-decentralized-blockchain-encryption-messaging-app
>>> 
>>> https://sbir.defensebusiness.org/(X(1)S(1k4rl43mjo4osffksxsusdf1))/topics?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1#topic27859
>> 
>>> Buzzwords: decentralized, journaled transactions, cyptographically sound, blockchain, repudiation, deniability, one time.
>>> 
>>> "Phase 3 will focus on commercialization", but any commercial system will require a back door, thus rendering it worthless for commercialization.
>> 
>> So I guess it cannot be based on publicly verifiable cryptography then,
>> because then the backdoor would be impossible. Guess they can just go
>> back to using Skipjack :P
>
>There's nothing in the SBIR proposal that calls for back doors.  That was Henry's cynical comment.
>
>Keep in mind that the FBI is at this point pretty much out there alone in demanding back doors (though they won't admit that that's what they really want).

Cynical, yes, but...

If perchance the proposer comes up with something interesting, the govt can:

* classify the whole thing
* take over the code
* issue an NSL to keep everyone quiet

or

* force installation of backdoor
* issue an NSL to keep everyone quiet

Yes, this would be a violation of the spirit of SBIR, which is intended to incentivize commercialization, but good luck suing...

So the only hope is that the project becomes open-source, so that any user can examine all of the source code.