Establishing big brother using covert channels and other covert techniques

Abstract

Weiser,s vision about computers in the next century is thatthey will be ubiquitous and in MIT's Media Lab project, called Things That Think, they will be embedded in such objects as shoes, belt buckles, tie clasps, etc. In this paper we explain how covert technology, such as covert channels, covert sensors and covert computing facilitates the set up of Big Brother, for example in a society where computers are ubiquitous. Detecting the absence of covert hardware and covert software is actually undecidable and cryptography alone seems inadequate to protect against the abuse of covert technology, extending the work of Anderson regarding the limitations of cryptography. Also, the use of covert technology to protect copyright can be abused to suppress freedom of expression.