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posted by janrinok on Wednesday July 01 2015, @04:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the hi-ho,-hi-ho dept.

The cryptography behind bitcoin solved a paradoxical problem: a currency with no regulator, that nonetheless can't be counterfeited. Now a similar mix of math and code promises to pull off another seemingly magical feat by allowing anyone to share their data with the cloud and nonetheless keep it entirely private.

On Tuesday, a pair of bitcoin entrepreneurs and the MIT Media Lab revealed a prototype for a system called Enigma, designed to achieve a decades-old goal in data security known as "homomorphic" encryption: A way to encrypt data such that it can be shared with a third party and used in computations without it ever being decrypted. That mathematical trick—which would allow untrusted computers to accurately run computations on sensitive data without putting the data at risk of hacker breaches or surveillance—has only become more urgent in an age when millions of users constantly share their secrets with cloud services ranging from Amazon and Dropbox to Google and Facebook. Now, with bitcoin's tricks in their arsenal, Enigma's creators say they can now pull off homomorphically encrypted computations more efficiently than ever.

http://www.wired.com/2015/06/mits-bitcoin-inspired-enigma-lets-computers-mine-encrypted-data/

[Paper]: http://enigma.media.mit.edu/enigma_full.pdf


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  • (Score: 2) by RobotMonster on Wednesday July 01 2015, @05:50PM

    by RobotMonster (130) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @05:50PM (#203864) Journal

    Off topic much?

    You could always email yourself each link you wanted to share, using, you know, the sharing button.

    Jailbreak? Good luck running random code off the internet. I'm sure there's nothing nefarious in there, at all.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday July 01 2015, @06:24PM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 01 2015, @06:24PM (#203876) Homepage Journal

    The security and privacy of the cloud is not a concern if one does not use it. If Apple werent a cloud provider I expect there would be a simple, direct way to transfer my bookmarks.

    That is, unless some other cloud provider paid Apple for sending customers their way.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 2) by RobotMonster on Wednesday July 01 2015, @06:41PM

      by RobotMonster (130) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @06:41PM (#203886) Journal

      If Apple werent a cloud provider I expect there would be a simple, direct way to transfer my bookmarks.

      Curious logic. It has more to do with Apple giving preferential treatment to their own ecosystem. I have common bookmarks between my iPad, iPhone, Mac Pro and MacBookPro. I can see what tabs I've left open on each device from every other device. (I wonder if Safari for Windows, if that still exists, supports this?)

      I remember using FoxMarks back in the day to sync firefox bookmarks between multiple machines. Mozilla wasn't a "cloud provider" at the time. A 3rd party solution was required...

      Still don't see what this has to do with MIT's dubious claims of being able to do useful computation on encrypted data without decrypting it.

      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:08PM

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:08PM (#203905) Homepage Journal

        If one did not use the cloud then ones data could not be mined despite MIT's best efforts.

        Its easy to export your firefox bookmarks just look in your profile folder.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
        • (Score: 2) by RobotMonster on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:34PM

          by RobotMonster (130) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:34PM (#203923) Journal

          If one did not use the cloud then ones data could not be mined

          While you are correct -- if you're harvesting these bookmarks to publish, I'm not really sure why you're worried about them being mined.

          Anything I do that I want hidden, it's hidden.
          Anything seriously secret, gets stored encrypted.
          Most things -- doesn't matter. That way I look normal to the NSA :-).

          Hi NSA. Here is a secret message I'm passing to another in my cell: pat8af3o3knuemm0i3at6i5ov0os4ok7in4hem0ry5witsh2odlu7gez9dic8oij0shayz4ci5frid1be8hois8bep5coin0lim1. Unfortunately for you it has been encrypted with a One Time Pad, so you can never decrypt it. Hint: the plaintext does not say "i love the NSA".

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:42PM

            by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:42PM (#203933) Homepage Journal

            I helped get the green party on the california ballot, and campaigned for jerry brown in 1992.

            Since then i have drifted quite far to the left, i will be helping bernie sanders soon.

            Now I dont use the cloyd myself but Occupy was brutally repressed in large part as a result if irganizing on FaceBook and Gmail.

            9-1-1

            Emergency Dispatch, what are you reporting?

            This is Mike Crawford from occupy salmon creek. Tomorrow morning we will firm a human chain across Interstate 5.

            The state patrol will be there to meet you. Thanks for calling.

            Glad to be of service.

            --
            Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]