[Cryptography] The Problem With Backdoored Crypto (Specifically relating to Chaum's latest idea)

[CANNON NATHANIEL CIOTA]

The Problem With Backdoored Crypto (Specifically relating to Chaum's 
latest idea)

With Chaum's latest proposal which includes what is technically a 
backdoor, I shall present problems with such a feature:

1- One of the main purposes of encryption is to prevent information from 
being perceivable by anything but the intended recipient. To implement a 
backdoor into encryption of any type would take away the purpose of 
encryption, period.

2- Some people may claim that "oh but Chaum's idea would only go after 
the bad people and evil stuff which would be decided upon by the wise 
majority". To this I argue, the majority could be wrong in their 
decision making either through biases or fallacies due to a lack of 
understanding by the majority. Another threat is if the majority is led 
by an influential adversary into believing that the target for 
de-anonymization is doing something wrong.

For example, say some human rights activist in China is using such 
flawed crypto protocols to carry out activities relating to promoting 
liberty and speaking out against corruption, the government uses the 
media to convey this person as a threat or "domestic terrorist", 
demonizes them and spreads biased views or fallacies to convince the 
majority to de-anonymize the target.

Chaum's proposal is against the very purpose of crypto and would weaken 
crypto protocols leaving people vulnerable to adversaries either through 
sybil attacks or at the mercy of the uninformed and/or biased masses. 
Such crypto would not be adapted anyways, by anyone whom is intelligent.

-- 
Cannon N. Ciota
Email: cannon at cannon-ciota.info
PGP Fingerprint: E7FB 0605 1BD4 8B88 B7BC 91A4 7DF7 76C7 25A6 AEE2