How to Engineer a Cryptographic 'Front Door'

With technology companies embracing strong encryption, the US Government is now pushing for cryptographic “front doors” that would allow law enforcement to break encryption with a warrant. But is it even possible to build these “front doors” without introducing vulnerabilities that could be maliciously exploited? In this talk, I’ll sketch out a potential solution (and what I believe NSA/FBI wants to implement, based on their public statements) using public key cryptography, threshold secret sharing, and cryptographic hardware. I will also explain why “front doors” are still a bad and unworkable idea.

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