Sometimes that’s good, but just as often it’s not. Put the same conversation online-Twitter, Facebook, email-and it’s a different story. When two people chat in a private room, what they talk about is just between them-there’s no paper trail, no recording the conversation lives on in memory alone. It’s an approach he’s also applying beyond messaging apps, building online tools that allow local governments to track gender wage gaps-without accessing private salary data-and enable sexual assault victims to more safely report their attackers. “The question at play in our paper is what is the most effective way to build a mechanism for reporting abuse-the fastest, most efficient way to provide the strongest security guarantees and provide the weakest possible puncturing of that?” “Our goal in cryptography is to build tools and systems that allow people to get things done safely in the digital world,” says Varia, associate professor in the faculty of computing and data sciences at Boston University. The team is presenting its findings at the 31st USENIX Security Symposium.Īs head of CDS’ Hub for Civic Tech Impact, Varia is also supporting projects aimed at closing the gender wage gap and helping survivors of sexual abuse. Working with a team of Boston University computer scientists, he’s designed a program called Hecate-fittingly named after the ancient Greek goddess of magic and spells-that can be bolted onto a secure messaging app to beef up its confidentiality, while also allowing moderators to crack down on abuse. A cryptographer and computer scientist, Varia is an expert on the societal impact of algorithms and programs, developing systems that balance privacy and security with transparency and social justice. Mayank Varia might have cracked the conundrum. But there’s a kicker: if that message peddles abuse or misinformation, maybe threatens violence, then anonymity may need to go out the window-the sender needs to be held to account.Īnd that’s the challenge: is there a way to allow people to send confidential, secure, untraceable messages, but still track any menacing ones? If someone leaks the message, it can never be traced back to the sender. It has to be so private, so secret, that they can deny they ever sent it. Here’s the puzzle: Someone wants to send a secure message online.
Indestructible codes, secret notes, encryption, and decryption. A new program could strengthen the security and privacy of WhatsApp, Signal, and other end-to-end encrypted messaging apps and help them better moderate online abuse.Ĭryptographers love an enigma, a problem to solve-and this one has it all.
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