Category: Privacy & Security
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Are User Identification Networks the Future of Commercial Bitcoin Transactions?
With 12.3 million bitcoins mined to date, the total value of bitcoins has reached $9.975 billion US dollars. While this may pale in comparison to the $1.23 trillion US dollars in circulation, the use of bitcoins in commerce is gaining traction. With this traction the potential exists to link users’ identities with their public bitcoin…
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Understanding Bitcoin's transaction malleability problem
In recent days, several Bitcoin exchanges have suspended certain kinds of payments due to “transaction malleability” issues. There has been a lot of talk about why this happened, and some finger-pointing. In this post, I will try to unpack what “transaction malleability” is and why it has proven to be a problem for some companies.
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It matters what the NSA does
It seems axiomatic that if we want to have an informed conversation about the legality, ethics, and policy implications of the NSA’s actions, it is useful to know what the NSA is doing. Yet a vocal subset of NSA defenders seem to be taking the contrary position, that information about the agency’s activities serves no…
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NSA call data analysis: inside or outside government?
Last week the President suggested that the NSA’s database of phone call data be stored outside the government, and he asked his Administration to study how this could be done. Today I’d like to start unpacking the options.
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Can Washington re-architect the NSA phone data program?
In the President’s NSA reform speech last week, he called for a study of how to re-architect the NSA’s phone call data program, to change where the data is stored. This raises a bunch of interesting computer science questions, which I’m planning to explore in a series of posts here.
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Is There a Future for Net Neutrality after Verizon v. FCC?
In a decision that was widely predicted by those who have been following the case, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has invalidated the FCC’s Open Internet Rules (so-called net neutrality regulations), which imposed non-discrimination and anti-blocking requirements on broadband Internet access providers. The rules were challenged by Verizon as soon as they…
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The Internet “Access Trap” in Developing Countries
Three of five people in the world still do not have access to the Internet. From the perspective of standard economic models, this is puzzling. The supply of international connectivity has expanded dramatically since 2009, when several submarine fiber cables came online connecting even the poorest countries in Africa to the global Internet. Also, with…
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Signing Mass Surveillance Declarations and Petitions: Should Academics Take a Stance?
Quite often, especially since the Snowden revelations began, tech policy academics will be approached by NGO’s and colleagues to sign petitions ‘to end mass surveillance’. It’s not always easy to decide whether you want to sign. If you’re an academic, you might want to consider co-signing one initiative launched today.
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RSA doesn't quite deny undermining customers' crypto
Reuters reported on Saturday that the NSA had secretly paid RSA Data Security $10 million to make a certain flawed algorithm the default in RSA’s BSAFE crypto toolkit, which many companies relied on. RSA issued a vehement but artfully worded quasi-denial. Let’s look at the story, and RSA’s denial.