Privacy Protocols

Abstract

Security protocols enable secure communication over insecure channels. Privacy protocols enable private interactions over secure channels. Security protocols set up secure channels using cryptographic primitives. Privacy protocols set up private channels using secure channels. But just like some security protocols can be broken without breaking the underlying cryptography, some privacy protocols can be broken without breaking the underlying security. Such privacy attacks have been used to leverage e-commerce against targeted advertising from the outset; but their depth and scope became apparent only with the overwhelming advent of influence campaigns in politics. The blurred boundaries between privacy protocols and privacy attacks present a new challenge for protocol analysis. Covert channels turn out to be concealed not only below overt channels, but also above: subversions, and the level-below attacks are supplemented by sublimations and the level-above attacks.

Causality and deceit: Do androids watch action movies?

“…The practice is far ahead of theory. The research reported in this paper is a part of a broader effort [9,31,33,34,47] towards developing models, methods, and tools for this area, where human and computational behaviors are not just inseparable, but they determine each other; and they do not just determine each other, but they seek to control each other.…”