March 25, 2017

Digital Identity, Privacy, and Security with Brian Warner

46 minutes

Summary

As the internet and digital technologies continue to infiltrate our way of life, we are forced to consider how our concepts of identity and security are reflected in these spaces. Brian Warner joins me this week to discuss his work on privacy focused projects that he has worked on, including the Tahoe LAFS, Firefox Sync, and Magic Wormhole. He also has some intriguing ideas about how we can replace passwords and what it means to have an online identity.

Preface

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Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Brian Warner about digital identity, privacy, and security

Interview

Please introduce yourself

How did you get introduced to Python?

How did you get involved in the area of cryptography and digital privacy?

You have created or made significant contributions to a number of projects that are focused on making secure communications and storage more accessible, including Tahoe LAFS (Least Authority File System), Magic Wormhole, and Petmail. Can you provide a brief overview of these projects and any others that you would like to mention?

What problem were you trying to solve when you created or began contributing to each of them and how satisfied are you with their current state?

What have you found to be the biggest barriers to adoption for these projects?

How do Tahoe and Magic Wormhole benefit an average user and what are your plans for their future development?

One of the most ubiquitous issues with our modern security infrastructure leading to compromise is the humble password. What are some technologies that you foresee replacing the need for passwords?

As technologists we are fairly well aware of the weaknesses in the systems that we use day-to-day. How can we make digital privacy and security more accessible?

Contact Info

warner on GitHub

@lotharrr on Twitter

Picks

Brian

Ra on Things of Interest

The Golden Age by John C. Wright

Links

Tor

Petmail (v1, ca 2003)

Petmail (new)

Mojo Nation

Tahoe-LAFS

Magic-Wormhole

Erasure Coding

Firefox Sync

JPAKE

SPAKE2

PyCon 2016 Presentation on Magic Wormhole (video)

(slides)

Versioneer

Keybase File System

Least Authority Enterprises

Foolscap

SpiderOak

Object Capability Pattern

Shamir’s Secret Sharing

AutoCrypt

Signal

Simply Secure

...more

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By Tobias Macey

4.4

100100 ratings