Re: zero-knowledge protocols

[Roy Lanek <lanek@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 1) Are you talking about a system which allows investigators to prove that
> they are looking for terrorist (and NOT human rights fighter)?

That they are looking for something they legally can, yes. To "prove" is
an exaggeration, but to cryptographically audit what they do on a tor
server--with the possibility to shed light on later, should a *case* develop,
via an [counter-] investigation at a higher level--that should be practicable.

> 2) Or about a system which allows investigators to answer their questions
> without shutting the Tor node down and confiscating the hardware?

Zero-knowledge software should complement tor so to let the server
administrators establish that the investigators are those who pretend to be,
are behind a real case and are legally empowered to probe this or that.

In the case the legality of a given probe is verified, then the investigators
can open a backdoor while being audited cryptographically along their *travel*
into the data.

That should warranty that there is no need to storm a site and confiscate the
hardware, indeed it should make it illegal in general.

> Or something else?

Possibly also, this is a topic which need to be studied and pondered well, I
am not a lawyer, nor a cryptographer.

> In my country, law enforcement should obtain a warrant to break into my
> house and confiscate the hardware (and they ALWAYS do so).

This is something that doesn't happen in your country only, in fact I could
not tell one place in the world in which this doesn't occur. Is nevertheless
something that should NOT take place--and for that I am writing.

> And it will take months or even years to give this hardware back.. So, I   .
> guess there's no extra need in such a system                               .

Ditto. I am from Switzerland, and I would be surprised if in the
country of the Rolex, the Zenith and the Tag Heuer you would get
your hardware back at all.

> My point of view: if law enforcers need to trace some super-puper-terrorist
> they can trace him in real life and use end-to-end confirmation attacks to
> view his unencrypted traffic (I think pedophiles can be traced in real life
> more efficiently too).

Agreed. I am the father of two daughters, a teen and an infant, and I worry on
the pedophiles less, in a sense. I am much, much more anxious on the tracing
of the [notice the Italic] *terrorists* ... I suppose you are not living under
a rock, have enough IQ, and follows the news. (Let me reiterate: if you know
French enough, read please the article whose URL I have given.)

And don't forget that tor adds zero to secrecy.

There is a book by Anna Seghers [a nom de plume], The Seventh Cross. It tells
the story of seven men who, one day, attempt an escape from a concentration
camp of the Nazi. They are hunted by the Nazi. One after the other they are
recaptured, who sooner who later , and publicly/demonstratively executed.
Minus the seventh, for whom the Nazi already have [symbolically] prepared the
cross for the cemetery.

This seventh fellow is a guy the Nazi do not manage to catch again.

Now, skipping bucolic or larmoyant reviews, and daring the A-B-C with Adorno
or Walter Benjamin, this seventh guy, whose escape success would have mattered
zero statistically, is on the other hand psychologically intolerable and FATAL
for an oppressor and a totalitarian.

(Now re-read my post from the begin again, please.)

/Roy
-- 
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
SSSSS . s l a c k w a r e  SSSSSS   dimana ada kemauan, di situ ada jalan
SSSSS +------------ linux  SSSSSS   where there is a will, there is a way
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS