An insecure avenue called internet

Three experts from MIT, awarded by the BBVA Foundation, explore the possibilities of cryptography

     Of all the thousands of activities that are carried out through the network, in which we pass the whole life, there are two crucial aspects that concern Ronald Rivest, Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), winners of the recent edition of the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies of the BBVA Foundation.


These two areas are electronic voting that decides the future of a nation and transactions with cryptocurrencies. Both share the need to operate in a secure electronic ecosystem.

"Cryptography is an essential component in a world in which everything is digitized, with daily electronic transactions," says Rivest, co-author of one of the algorithms that in 1977 made possible the encryption of information. "We need to achieve confidentiality and verification of data."

     Rivest's current research seeks to guarantee the integrity of electronic voting systems. "It is not a trivial matter, because it requires the secrecy of suffrage, which contradicts the need to verify that the vote counted corresponds to the one issued," explains Rivest, who confesses not to use Facebook or any other social network.


 "I do not need it. If I want to share photos of my children, I use email. A Gmail, in which I do not tell any secret �.

After his research, he says: "Today I recommend the vote of paper, a simple and understandable technology. In electronic elections, fraud can be done easily, either with a virus or with keys to decrypt �.

Internet security is directly related to the strength of the economic transactions generated there daily. Today there are some 2,000 cryptocurrencies, according to Micali's calculations, most of them "very bad" and the challenge of reinforcing them is imposed, while at the same time avoiding the waste of energy and the slowness of operations. "Now it is very centralized, with protocols and vulnerable networks," criticizes Micali, owner, in turn, of a company with its own virtual currency, Algorand. "The objective is for investors to manage their own resources, without proof of work. Find a cryptocurrency that the 'adversary' can not corrupt, at the same time the intermediaries are eliminated �.

Adversaries and obsolescence
 
For the three researchers, the 'adversary' or the 'bad guys' are those who search the fissures of the Internet for crime. One way to deceive those who lurk would be to "prove that I know the password without writing it, by generating random questions that can only be answered by those who know it," maintains Goldwasser and points to pressure from the US FBI to store the cryptographic keys. , with a view to hardening security.

But the digital community is still looking for alternatives. "The gap between what is used now and what is available in mathematical models is narrowing," says Goldwasser. �One thing is what is written in scientific articles, and another is the commercial development of applications by companies�.

Technology competes against itself. To reach the full potential of cryptography could take a couple of generations, according to Micali, but current encryption models could be obsolete before twenty years, according to Rivest calculations: "We do not have the tools to achieve the technical elements that make of internet a completely secure site, without causing an absolute disruption of the current system, "says Rivest, who asks:"


 Who has the codes to decrypt data? Technologies have shown that they can not do what legislators want. Now legislators must evaluate if it is reasonable to allocate the resources that are needed to develop those tools �.