Kill-switch or reset to protect digital rights
Anna Romanova, Ph.D., MBA, LL.M., ALM, FCCA
Artificial Intelligence | International Taxation | CorpTech | Speaker | Writer | Researcher
The ideal solution to protect digital rights should be based on the following main principles:
clear definition and segregation of digital rights between participants of the play;
agreement and acceptance of the defined rights (some kind of social contract);
available tools to enforce the applicable rights for each party;
Tools to protect digital rights should be based on artificial intelligence methods, as well as modern surveillance tools:
Visual surveillance:
Old-fashioned methods like niqaab (ruband) and theatre makeup to avoid visual recognition are still available, but not practical;
New style methods will be based on deceiving convolutional neural nets that now are mainstream in computer vision. Minor image alterations can disrupt many CNNs without fooling human observers.
Voice tapping:
Historically used methods are still available as well: sign languages, dialogues written on paper etc.;
Modern methods will be based on adding some specific noise to deceive neural nets i.e. adding a quiet layer of noise to a sound clip that contains distinctive patterns a neural network will associate with other words.
Text (e-mail, documents) reading:
Different methods of hiding information can be used, like steganography, anagrams etc.;
Developing methods are based on manipulation of natural language processing systems (for example exploring synonyms etc.);
Network surveillance:
Onion routers currently defend users against traffic analysis and network surveillance, but are susceptible for pattern recognition by machine learning and deep learning technologies;
For future onion routers will need to add some kind of protection against pattern recognition learning algorithms (for example generating false traffic etc.);
One of the possible solutions may be based on some kind of license server for each person: in physical world we consider the information is confirmed when it is signed by the respective person. It might be established that any kind of information about person in cyberworld may be considered valid or feasible to use at all only if it is signed / licensed / activated by the person whose digital rights this information affects.
Technology to implement such solution may be some kind of oracle used for block chains a server outside of the block chain which allows for arbitrary conditions to be checked for.
Blockchain technology generally might be considered as some kind of last resort for privacy protection. Due to its nature ideal blockchain supposed to have no central control, that limits centralised surveillance, but limits centralised protection as well.
The comprehensive kill-switch or reset to protect digital rights may be established based on legitimate social contract only connecting cyber and physical worlds. All other solutions will be temporary and vulnerable while still enhancing development of new technologies.