Infrastructures of trust and distrust: The politics and ethics of emerging cryptographic technologies

Abstract

The authors of this article are engaged in anthropological research on the links between the growing interest in privacy and data security as a technical field and how notions of trust, security and accountability are practised in and beyond technical fields of cryptography, specifically a field called multi‐party computation (MPC). They pursue the relationship between trust in different forms of cryptography – academic and activist – and notions of trust as they are articulated in relation to data security and the protection of citizens’ data. There is a tension between the concerns raised in public debates about data security and the promises of emerging cryptographic protocols. In political speeches and public debates, citizens’ trust that governments and tech companies will protect their data is framed as important and essential. In the environments of emerging cryptographic technologies, such as blockchains, bitcoin and MPC, a promise to provide ‘trustless trust’ and abandon the need for trusted intermediaries, authorities and institutions is articulated.

It is not (only) about privacy: How multi-party computation redefines control, trust, and risk in data sharing

“…Our secondary contribution is to the MPC literature by being among the first to explore the business impact of MPC beyond citizen privacy. In this way, we expand the understanding of the socio-economic aspects of MPC, which are overlooked in the MPC literature (Agahari et al, 2021;Agrawal et al, 2021;Bruun et al, 2020;Kanger & Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, 2015).…”

“…They argued that future development of MPC should consider issues like explainability, usability, and accountability, in order to promote its adoption. Similarly, Bruun et al (2020) argued that while MPC offers "trustless trust" that eliminates the need for intermediaries, it raises accountability issues due to the inability to link the results and the original input data. Furthermore, from the legal perspective, Helminger and Rechberger (2022) found that companies using MPC could comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) while benefiting from the privacy-preserving computation.…”

“…Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). On the one hand, MPC enables computational analysis without revealing input data (Bestavros et al, 2017;Choi & Butler, 2019;Zhao et al, 2019), eliminating the need for a trusted third party as an intermediary that facilitates data sharing (Bruun et al, 2020;Helminger & Rechberger, 2022). Hence, firms should be able to retain data control and possibly reduce the risk of data sharing in the process.…”

Trust in K.E. Løgstrup's Lutheran Political Ethics

“…4 4 A more recent issue of systems trust is caused by the widespread use of digital infrastructure, particularly cryptography:

the kind of computer algorithms and data encryption standards that secure the flow of digital communication and data, including our activities on the Internet, email, ecommerce and all kinds of electronic identity authentication. (Bruun, Andersen, & Mannov 2020, p. 13).

The authors ask if cryptographic trust may “inhibit public trust or perhaps even undermine existing relations of trust among people, and among citizens towards social institutions?” (ibid. ). …”

“…A more recent issue of systems trust is caused by the widespread use of digital infrastructure, particularly cryptography:

the kind of computer algorithms and data encryption standards that secure the flow of digital communication and data, including our activities on the Internet, email, ecommerce and all kinds of electronic identity authentication. (Bruun, Andersen, & Mannov 2020, p. 13).

…”