
DARPA Is Looking For the Perfect Encryption App - mr_golyadkin
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/darpa-decentralized-blockchain-encryption-messaging-app
======
manav
I saw this a few days in the DARPA SBIR/STTR release. My understanding is that
they do not want to use a public blockchain, instead just utilize blockchain
technology across DoD servers to make them less susceptible to a attack, while
also giving clear transaction logs for certain military requests that have
compliance needs.

The private blockchain will give them state machine replication, some kind of
method of encrypted authentication, and a platform for transaction
verification across military/dod (or whatever the specific use cases are). The
communication bit could work as well since they don't have to store the
messages themselves in the blockchain. Since the blockchain is private, this
also somewhat solves the problem of transaction speed. There would probably be
some lag, but probably just a few seconds or even less if optimized.

Something like Ethereum (with whisper and and swarm) could work if they were
looking to use a public blockchain, but they specifically reference
Hyperledger.org in their publication.

~~~
paavokoya
If the source code to this encrypted database were to be released publicly
(say by "leakers") what would stop them from accessing and writing to said
database (err excuse me, "blockchain")

~~~
dogma1138
Network access and presumably some centralized key hierarchy.

Same thing that would prevent some one from writing to the private blockchains
banks are setting up for clearinghouse purposes.

If your the security of your cryptographic system is dependent on anything but
the secret keys being secret it's time to go back to the drawing board.

Bitcoin works because it uses proof of work as a gating mechanism to prevent
abuse, closed blockchains usually rely on other mechanisms as the parties
involved in them can negotiate the terms via other means.

~~~
paavokoya
>Network access and presumably some centralized key hierarchy.

How is that different from what is used currently?

------
swax
I built a totally decentralized and secure P2P/DHT communications platform a
long time ago called DeOps -
[https://github.com/swax/DeOps](https://github.com/swax/DeOps)

It let's members of a group create a totally private darknet with a hierarchy
of trust among themselves using a chain of signed trust tokens. All packets
are encrypted with the key of the receiver and signed by the sender. It even
uses random ports and sends filler traffic between nodes to prevent finger
printing.

I built on top of it services like IM, VOIP, chat rooms, a versioned file
system, mail, message boards, etc.. I had a lot of free time lol. The nodes
automatically manage the storage of data around the DHT.

~~~
Apofis
Why not try to pitch them the flatform? Or maybe even make the requested
changes to it so that it fits the spec more closely to show you're serious.
Could be good money.

------
DarthChucks
"time to live/self delete for messages" on a "Customized blockchain
implementation" seems to be contradictory. Any data deleted from a block will
invalidate all blocks made after the deletion.

~~~
maxerickson
What problem do they have that a blockchain solves? The big win for bitcoin is
that the consensus blockchain can be chosen without trust. I would think the
military wouldn't be worried about manufacturing consensus among untrusted
nodes.

I guess if the messages are stored in the blockchain, a device would be able
to delete the key and other information needed to access the message,
effectively deleting the message from the device, protecting the user of the
device from having to answer for the content of the message.

~~~
zanny
Sounds more like they want Matrix, where you just have a bunch of redundant
federated private servers in their own network. Everyone ends up with copies
of all room conversation history, and it uses Signal for the encryption.

------
eloisius
Neat. I doubt I'm DARPA material, but I've been working on a side project that
shares a lot of these goals.

I'm implementing a DHT based on Mainline (Bittorrent) to serve as a p2p
transport layer for sending asynchronous messages. Then, I want to use the
Signal protocol on top of it.

[https://github.com/zacstewart/comm](https://github.com/zacstewart/comm)

~~~
justifier
i like the readme, but before i check out the project.. what's the license?

~~~
eloisius
I should get around to adding one, but it will be MIT.

------
__jal
Doesn't meet all of the requirements, but the Cypherpunks-era "darknet" \- PGP
+ Usenet - is a lot closer than a lot of current tools, particularly in terms
of deniability.

~~~
rtkwe
Most current tools have made some trade-offs to make them more user friendly
so they'll actually be used. A perfectly secure messenger isn't very useful if
it's so hard to use that no one does.

------
kobayashi
The Grugq has a better (IMO) article on the topic:

[https://medium.com/@thegrugq/anonymous-
messaging-3032319192b...](https://medium.com/@thegrugq/anonymous-
messaging-3032319192b6#.a82vicvik)

------
chatmasta
> Frederic Jacobs, an independent security researcher who has worked as a
> developer for the encryption messaging app Signal

I thought he worked for Apple now? [0]

EDIT: nevermind, I stand corrected... To make this comment non-useless, let me
add to the discussion by saying that the linked DoD website is very cool. Has
anyone here applied for a grant via this website (or the underlying DoD
protocols)? It seems very foreign and convoluted to me, I'm wondering what the
application process is like.

[0] [http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/25/apple-hires-developer-
behin...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/25/apple-hires-developer-behind-
signal-edward-snowdens-favorite-secure-chat-app/)

[1] [https://sbir.defensebusiness.org](https://sbir.defensebusiness.org)

~~~
moxie
You're right, Fred doesn't work at Open Whisper Systems. He's a student at
EPFL, and is doing a summer internship at Apple this year.

Since the article mentions Signal, I think the author just wanted to make it
clear that Fred's quotes come with a potential bias since he worked on Signal
in the past.

But we're hiring if you want to be quoted in future Motherboard articles on
private messaging! =)

[https://whispersystems.org/workworkwork/](https://whispersystems.org/workworkwork/)

------
pkill17
I'm glad there's at least one government agency that's competent and technical
enough to further our encryption tech. I'm worried the FBI and DOJ will try to
spin this DARPA notice into somehow justifying that 'perfect encryption should
be a military-only technology'.

------
kbaker
I had an idea like this a bit ago, where essentially you would dump your tiny
(PGP) message in a giant noise haystack at a random, or generated offset.
These messages would get rolled up into a big torrent that gets served every
so often.

This is similar to PGP over Usenet, but has the advantage of fooling traffic
analysis as well.

It is actually more like dead drops, storing something secret or obfuscated in
a very public place, and agents check it only every so often. Since it would
just look like a giant torrent, it would be very hard to detect legitimate
torrent mirroring from also pulling information out.

Only problem is still the message expiration, which I don't really believe is
possible except when using a third party server.

~~~
Matt3o12_
This doesn't scale well and is impossible if you want to send any media. If
such an app were to become as popular as iMessage, it would need to handle
200k message per second. I can't download so many messages per second on my
phone. You could send blocks with 2000 messages but you could easily be
deanonymized (look, out of those 2m messages, he requested 5 blocks with the
same author. I think they talk to each other). Don't get my started with kilo
to megabyte big images. If you would not want to scale the app, you could also
be deanonymized because you're talking with a niche that has less then 10,000
users.

I wish there was an easy solution to this problem but we already see how badly
Bitcoin scale and there are great articles why Bitcoin with its current design
can't be used in the real world simply because the block chain has a pretty
low limit on transactions per second.

------
Nutomic
I am currently developing a decentralized messenger that might fit this
description. I've developed Ensichat [1] as a messenger that works over
Bluetooth and Internet, by sending messages peer to peer. At the moment, I'm
adding additional functionality to this app as part of my Bachelor thesis
(improved routing, and relays that hold messages while the destination is not
reachable).

Does anyone have experience with DARPA projects, and if individuals can apply
for it? (I'm not from the US)

Edit: My app does not use a blockchain because the data, bandwidth and power
usage aren't an option for mobile devices.

[1] [https://github.com/Nutomic/ensichat](https://github.com/Nutomic/ensichat)

~~~
manav
Most things having to do with encryption are usually restricted. Strong
cryptography has export restrictions so that could be an issue.

~~~
Nutomic
But that would only be a problem if I lived in the USA, right?

------
malandrew

        DARPA wants “a public wall anyone can monitor or post
        messages on, but only correct people can decrypt.”
    

Great related talk "Defcon 21 - De-Anonymizing Alt.Anonymous. Messages"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tj6c2Ikq_E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tj6c2Ikq_E)

[https://ritter.vg/p/AAM-defcon13.pdf](https://ritter.vg/p/AAM-defcon13.pdf)

------
Aelinsaar
The very concept of a "perfect encryption app" seems flawed to me. Maybe it's
just my ignorance talking, but the more important the information you're
trying to encrypt, the more of an active and constant process it is to protect
it over the long term.

In this case, a "perfect app" would probably be a dedicated department of
human beings overseeing the ongoing development and proactive defense of
whatever encryption scheme they settle on.

~~~
Animats
That's Vice talking, not DARPA.

What DARPA apparently wants is a way to hide messages in a broadcast medium.
USENET alt binary groups, PornHub, and Twitter would be suitable. It should be
something that gets through the Great Firewall of China, probably.

~~~
daveguy
>USENET alt binary groups, PornHub, Twitter...

Do those things get through the Great Firewall? Does HN?

~~~
progressive_dad
I would say this is more of a steganography challenge than a cryptography
challenge per-se.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography)

[http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-hide-one-image-in-
ano...](http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-hide-one-image-in-another-An-
introduction-/)

If common image formats get through, then yes, there is a network broadcast
format that you can use to securely communicate through the great firewall.

------
cdevs
I think the server "wall concept" is easy, the client or ease of use is the
real problem. it's not hard to keep encrypting until everything is
"ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt" that for
example could be hi to one person and goodbye to another even though they are
all the same letter, the problem is always in keys or the need for
them/transferring.

------
jbpetersen
Closest they're gonna get to self-destructing messages on a blockchain is
trusting the recipient to delete the decryption key after a certain amount of
time, along with pruning expired messages from the chain (not perfect,
probably good enough).

To their merit, blockchain based messaging is an easy way to prevent a great
deal of traffic analysis.

------
nxzero
DARPA's notice looking for proposals:
[https://sbir.defensebusiness.org/topics#topic27859](https://sbir.defensebusiness.org/topics#topic27859)

------
vezycash
This morning, I thought of using public keys as an address - like an email
address. What do you guys think?

~~~
strgrd
What a novel idea... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID-
based_encryption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID-based_encryption)

------
banach
So... FreeNet?

------
aaronhoffman
Is this a honey pot scam?

------
darkhorn
Whatsapp for sure.

------
mkhpalm
Thats cool... for the government. But are we allowed to use perfect encryption
in the United States anymore?

