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
-
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},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1162}
}
