BURDENS OF PROOF

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-262-01751-0
Verlag: MIT PR

Buch, Englisch, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 522 g

Reihe: The MIT Press

An examination of the challenges of establishing the authenticity of electronic documents—in particular the design of a cryptographic equivalent to handwritten signatures.The gradual disappearance of paper and its familiar evidential qualities affects almost every dimension of contemporary life. From health records to ballots, almost all documents are now digitized at some point of their life cycle, easily copied, altered, and distributed. In Burdens of Proof, Jean-François Blanchette examines the challenge of defining a new evidentiary framework for electronic documents, focusing on the design of a digital equivalent to handwritten signatures.From the blackboards of mathematicians to the halls of legislative assemblies, Blanchette traces the path of such an equivalent: digital signatures based on the mathematics of public-key cryptography. In the mid-1990s, cryptographic signatures formed the centerpiece of a worldwide wave of legal reform and of an ambitious cryptographic research agenda that sought to build privacy, anonymity, and accountability into the very infrastructure of the Internet. Yet markets for cryptographic products collapsed in the aftermath of the dot-com boom and bust along with cryptography's social projects.Blanchette describes the trials of French bureaucracies as they wrestled with the application of electronic signatures to real estate contracts, birth certificates, and land titles, and tracks the convoluted paths through which electronic documents acquire moral authority. These paths suggest that the material world need not merely succumb to the virtual but, rather, can usefully inspire it. Indeed, Blanchette argues, in renewing their engagement with the material world, cryptographers might also find the key to broader acceptance of their design goals.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Blanchette, Jean-François

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Daten / Datenbanken Kryptologie, Informationssicherheit
• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Technische Informatik Computersicherheit Kryptographie, Datenverschlüsselung
• Rechtswissenschaften Wirtschaftsrecht Medienrecht Telekommunikationsrecht, IT-Recht, Internetrecht
• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik EDV & Informatik Allgemein EDV & Informatik: Geschichte
• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik EDV & Informatik Allgemein Rechtliche Aspekte der EDV

Über Autor(innen)

Blanchette, Jean-François
Jean-François Blanchette is Associate Professor in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of Burdens of Proof (MIT Press).

Jean-François Blanchette is Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.