Cryptography and Evidence
Short Description
The invention of public-key cryptography led to the notion that cryptographically ….. integrity, and the use of cryptography to provide confidentiality. …
Website: research.microsoft.com | Filesize: 523kb
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Cryptography and Evidence
Michael Roe
Clare College
A dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the University of CambridgeSummary
The invention of public-key cryptography led to the notion that cryptographically protected messages
could be used as evidence to convince an impartial adjudicator that a disputed event had in
fact occurred. Information stored in a computer is easily modi ed, and so records can be falsi ed
or retrospectively modi ed. Cryptographic protection prevents modi cation, and it is hoped that
this will make cryptographically protected data acceptable as evidence. This usage of cryptography
to render an event undeniable has become known as non-repudiation. This dissertation is an
enquiry into the fundamental limitations of this application of cryptography, and the disadvantages
of the techniques which are currently in use. In the course of this investigation I consider the
converse problem, of ensuring that an instance of communication between computer systems leaves
behind no unequivocal evidence of its having taken place. Features of communications protocols
that were seen as defects from the standpoint of non-repudiation can be seen as bene ts from the
standpoint of this converse problem, which I call plausible deniability”.
i…
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