Too Many Secrets
October 4, 2012 11:17 AM Subscribe
Over the years, Alice and Bob have gone their separate ways. Alice now works as the research director of a cryptographic software company; Bob has gone into hardware, running a cloud computing service. As they have drifted apart, their security and privacy needs have changed somewhat. When Alice talks to Bob, she still needs to guard against Eve’s snooping. But, in addition, Alice’s company now has proprietary information that she must not disclose to Bob. Complicating her predicament, she wants to use Bob’s computers for tasks that involve the secret data.
Ordinary cryptography is no help in this situation. Alice can encrypt the data when she sends it to Bob, but he can do nothing with it unless he can decrypt it. That is exactly what Alice seeks to avoid. They are at an impasse, which homomorphic encryption is designed to surmount.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Double. -- mathowie
Carol & Ted, on the other hand, have an open source relationship.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 11:39 AM on October 4, 2012 [6 favorites]
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 11:39 AM on October 4, 2012 [6 favorites]
Didn't Alice and Bob used to run the "Lab of Pepsi-Cola and Doom" at Computer Shopper?
(Just used the "Edit" link for thefirst second time!)
posted by mmrtnt at 11:51 AM on October 4, 2012
(Just used the "Edit" link for the
posted by mmrtnt at 11:51 AM on October 4, 2012
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're not.
- Someone
posted by blue_beetle at 11:52 AM on October 4, 2012
- Someone
posted by blue_beetle at 11:52 AM on October 4, 2012
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posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:21 AM on October 4, 2012 [2 favorites]