Making decryption accountable (Transcript of discussion)

Abstract

I’ve given the title Making Decryption Accountable to this talk. Let me just start with a little story. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be able to go out in the evening and not tell my parents where I was going because I wanted my privacy. But my parents naturally wanted to make sure that they’d have some recourse if I don’t come back at the expected time. They wanted security in other words. We hit upon a compromise whereby I would put my plans in an envelope, and leave it on the kitchen table or something, and then if I came back at the appointed time I could retrieve the envelope, and by the properties of an envelope I could see it hadn’t been opened, and therefore I knew my privacy hadn’t been violated. But if I didn’t come back at the right time, they at least had some clues as to where they should look for me.