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Privacy Software Your Rights Online

Digital Credentials Offer Enhanced Privacy 49

Posted by kdawson from the cypherpunks-write-code dept.
John Q Random writes "Stefan Brands's company credentica.com announced their U-Prove library and SDK implementing ID tokens — also known as digital credentials or private credentials. (Private Credentials are a cool PKI replacement and anonymous e-cash tech that allows you to prove certified attributes like age, credit rating, group membership, etc. without revealing who you are; to allow you to have a digital life without the digital dossier effect inherent in a central databases.) Following this announcement, Adam Back announced credlib, an open source implementation of Brands credentials (and the older more basic Chaum certificates). These developments relate to recent news from IBM's Zurich labs on their identity-mixer project (previously discussed on Slashdot) that is based on the less efficient Jan Camenisch and Anna Lysyanskaya credentials."
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Digital Credentials Offer Enhanced Privacy More

Digital Credentials Offer Enhanced Privacy

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  • Identity Theft (Score:4, Insightful)

    by biocute ( 936687 ) on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @05:44PM (#18088978)
    This is under the presumption that the holder/applicant is who he claims he is.

    I guess it'll just get added to the to-do list of phishers and ID thieves.

    And the fact that (real) sensitive data has to be included to prevent 'leading/sharing' just begs for hacking.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      How the holder/applicant builds up his/her reputation capital is one issue. Maintaining the integrity of it afterwards is what this technology is all about.

      The fact that Adam Back is involved lends serious credibility to this effort. There may well be weaknesses, as with any scheme. But at least it's been looked at and implemented in part by one of the best in the biz.

      Of course, some wit might point out how do we know it's the real Adam Back? Clearly that's possible to determine, but with our previous techn
      • Why is it that when I hear from a press release that a new product offers "enhanced privacy" that I immediately think that means "less privacy"?

        This is about the world as it has been made by the corporate masters, and their "interesting" repurposing of words.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Zeinfeld ( 263942 )
        The fact that Adam Back is involved lends serious credibility to this effort. There may well be weaknesses, as with any scheme. But at least it's been looked at and implemented in part by one of the best in the biz.

        Stefan is not exactly in need of credibility. We all know he can do the business on the technology side.

        The main concerns here are first Stephan has a tendency to prioritize certain political attachments over practical issues. So the question is not whether the system will be as private as cl

    • /me trundles off to create a website that asks users to upload their private keys to guarantee the strength of the security...

  • Well blow me down! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Itninja ( 937614 ) on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @05:53PM (#18089080) Homepage
    At first I thought is said "Digital Credentials Offer Enhanced Piracy"

    "Me SmartCard an' Biometrics allow en' more booty to be plundered, yarhhh!"
  • When I read "digital credentials" I immediately thought "(SSL/SMIME) certs and (SSH/PGP) keys". Those are two standard and widely implemented forms of "strong" digital authentication. SSL certs are also already available in hardware tokens, etc, if you like the FOB route. (Just ask the DoD about CAC cards...)

    I don't know why people keep trying to reinvent the wheel here.

    • RTFA (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @06:09PM (#18089298) Homepage
      When I read "digital credentials" I immediately thought "(SSL/SMIME) certs and (SSH/PGP) keys". Those are two standard and widely implemented forms of "strong" digital authentication.

      The problem with regular certs is that they are all-or-nothing, so if you disclose your cert to a party, they now have all the information in the cert. For example, consider using a "digital drivers license" to prove your age or using a "digital student ID" to get a student discount; it's totall overkill.

      The summary explains why Brands credentials are an improvement:

      Private Credentials are a cool PKI replacement and anonymous e-cash tech that allows you to prove certified attributes like age, credit rating, group membership, etc. without revealing who you are (emphasis added)

      • The problem with regular certs is that they are all-or-nothing, so if you disclose your cert to a party, they now have all the information in the cert. For example, consider using a "digital drivers license" to prove your age or using a "digital student ID" to get a student discount; it's totall overkill.

        You don't put things like "age" or "student ID" on a cert, and you certainly wouldn't put them on a key. Instead, you could use the verified IDs from certs/keys to look up information from a master DB, muc

        • They're exactly correct. But this post puts somebody's credentials behind their position. :-)

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Beryllium Sphere(tm) ( 193358 )
          >Instead, you could use the verified IDs from certs/keys to look up information from a master DB, much like Brands and dozens of other interchangable knuckleheads are proposing.

          That is the exact opposite of what Dr. Brands is proposing, and the existence of a central database full of sensitive information is precisely the problem he's trying to prevent. How anyone could read his PhD thesis without understanding that is beyond my imagination.

          >you're still trusting a third party to only give out a piece

    • When I read "digital credentials" I immediately thought "(SSL/SMIME) certs and (SSH/PGP) keys". Those are two standard and widely implemented forms of "strong" digital authentication. SSL certs are also already available in hardware tokens, etc, if you like the FOB route. (Just ask the DoD about CAC cards...)

      I don't know why people keep trying to reinvent the wheel here.

      Well, if you'd read the summary, you'd have noticed that these add more privacy over traditional certs, while still allowing you to prove credentials. That is, you can prove that you're over 18 without giving any more information about yourself. Compare that with a cert, where at the very least your information can be linked together by cert id.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by db32 ( 862117 )
      CAC Card is redundant based on what it is supposed to stand for. In reality it isn't because its a Can't Access Crap Card. It was a great idea, with an implementation that makes you wish the edges of your ID card were sharper so you could just slit your wrists at the computer and be more productive.
  • Following this announcement, Adam Back announced credlib, an open source implementation of Brands credentials (and the older more basic Chaum certificates).

    That certainly sounds like a credlib-able solution to the problem.

  • Technolgy can't fix legal/economic problems (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @06:02PM (#18089234) Homepage
    Where is the threat to individual privacy? As I see it, the threat is companies misusing legitimately-obtained personal information. Now let's tie in privacy with today's earlier discussion about credit card fraud. To buy anything over the Net from a reputable vendor, you usually must provide your legal name, home address, and phone number in order for the credit card transaction to be approved. (Buying from less reputable vendors may actually provide more privacy because AFAIK Paypal doesn't expose all these personal details when you make a payment.) What is the chance that VISA/MC/AMEX will re-engineer their systems to be privacy-preserving?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by John.P.Jones ( 601028 )
      > What is the chance that VISA/MC/AMEX will re-engineer their systems to be privacy-preserving?

      Much better when there is a well understood solution to the problem. The technology is a necessary not a sufficient condition for fixing these problems. No it won't magically solve our problems but that doesn't negate the use of developing the technology.
    • >What is the chance that VISA/MC/AMEX will re-engineer their systems to be privacy-preserving?

      Pretty high, but only if they are on the hook legally for privacy breaches, or if their customer start swinging business based on privacy concerns. Otherwise nil.
  • ...and no CardSpace?

    Oh, thats right, I'm reading /. ;)

  • How? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pesc ( 147035 ) on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @06:37PM (#18089616)
    I don't need this certificate myself. Can someone explain why I can't obtain one proving my age (42) and sell it to a youngster? All other attributes are masked.

    • anti-lending feature (Re:How?) (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @06:54PM (#18089794)
      They have an anti-lending option. Here's how it works: the credential can have multiple private keys, one of which has to be random and the others of which can be secrets you would not be happy to sell to a youngster. (Say like your credit card number, or any other info that could be risky to lend to someone). Without all of the private keys you cant use the credential, so the would be lender, or reseller cant transfer the credential without revealing secrets chosen to be risky to share.

      The CA or credential issuer, he sees secrets when the credential is issued, however you trust him not to abuse those secrets (and maybe you paid him with the same credit card number eg). However due to the crypto magic the CA cant observe nor trace your uses of the credential back to you even with full collusion with relying parties.

      In fact the privacy is unconditionally secure and the user has full control and doesnt have to trust anyone (not CA, not relying parties, etc) only that the software of his credential wallet software is correctly implemented. This software would typically be open source and peer reviewed.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pesc ( 147035 )
        the credential can have multiple private keys, one of which has to be random and the others of which can be secrets you would not be happy to sell to a youngster. (Say like your credit card number, or any other info that could be risky to lend to someone).

        So someone with nothing to lose (a bum?) can't get to verify he's 40?

        Apart from a credit card number (can't you get one-off credit cards or cancel them or report it stolen?) I don't know what kind of information you absolutely can't share.

        • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          You are correct that you cant ultimately prevent lending. Another secret you can put in the private keys is a large denomination ecash coin ... do you trust the guy you sold the credential to for $10 not to cash your $100 deposit?

          Well even that just means the minimum price of the credential resale is set by the issuer.

          There is also something called credential pooling, which means an issuer could make a unified credential which is simultaneously your authentication and credential for many important things,

          • Well even that just means the minimum price of the credential resale is set by the issuer.

            Well not really. If the ecash coin has $1000 in it and I want to sell my identify for $100 then the price to the buyer is $1100 and he gets $1000 back straight away.

    • I don't need this certificate myself. Can someone explain why I can't obtain one proving my age (42) and sell it to a youngster? All other attributes are masked.
      Because the system digital signs your identity by tattooing a digital signature of your biometrics across your forehead.
  • True of all such "private" information storage facilities...

    Either the information is kept by someone and can be obtained from the issuer (whether through legitimate legal means or theft. This is valuable information. Unscrupulous people will steal, trade and sell it). You're basically trusting the issuer to keep you safe. SSL certs are kinda like this but there's no pretense of private data being stored encrypted in the cert.

    OR

    Once the certificate is issued there is no way to identify who it is issued to,
    • That's what the cryptography is for. You don't need to trust the issuer but in a case of fraud it is possible to tell who you are and at no other time. The math is quite solid, but people's understanding of it is a bit shaky.
  • It remains to be seen at this point whether the Camenisch/Lysyanskaya Idemix credentials are really "less efficient" than Brands. Certainly the CL credential work is newer. Brands' stuff is good but the field does not stand still. Until we see benchmarks putting them side by side, it is too early to say which is more efficient.
  • Is PKI that broken that we already need a replacement? Seems to do the job for me...
    • I dunno. I find the whole PKI thing to be incredibly baroque and subject to failure/inconsistency/difficulty-of-use (what's the opposite of ease-of-use?).

      Now maybe when I get it all set up right, it'll run OK. But so far getting it set up has proven to be a massive time sink for me, and I'm still not there yet.

              dave
  • The technology to do this one way or another has been around for years, at least since David Chaum's blinded signatures and e-cash. The problem is getting it to be marketable.

    There are 2 hurdles to this product:

    1. Digital certificates of any kind are hard to get Joe average user to understand and adopt. How many people use PGP style email encryption, let alone user SSL certificates?

    2. More seriously, how many online business are willing, not only not to collect customer data, but to go to sigif

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