Paper 2015/1162

The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

Phillip Rogaway

Abstract

Cryptography rearranges power: it configures who can do what, from what. This makes cryptography an inherently \textit{political} tool, and it confers on the field an intrinsically \textit{moral} dimension. The Snowden revelations motivate a reassessment of the political and moral positioning of cryptography. They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. I plea for a reinvention of our disciplinary culture to attend not only to puzzles and math, but, also, to the societal implications of our work.

Note: * Paper corresponding to an IACR Distinguished Lecture given at Asiacrypt 2015. A one-page abstract appears in those proceedings. * A version of this paper with endnotes instead of footnotes can be found on the author's homepage.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Publication info
Preprint. MINOR revision.
Keywords
cryptographyethicsmass surveillanceprivacySnowdensocial responsiblity
Contact author(s)
rogaway @ cs ucdavis edu
History
2017-06-19: last of 12 revisions
2015-12-02: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2015/1162
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2015/1162,
      author = {Phillip Rogaway},
      title = {The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work},
      howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2015/1162},
      year = {2015},
      note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1162}},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1162}
}
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