Awesome
crypto-geofence
Is it possible for me to check if I'm inside a geofence, without revealing my location to the server, and without the server giving me the true geofence?
Video at DEF-CON Crypto & Privacy Village 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySl2ywGiFkw
What is homomorphic encryption?
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption">Homomorphic encryption</a> is a new technique where you can perform arithmetic operations on encrypted numbers. It's possible with a few different algorithms, including the factoring-based one used here (Paillier). In the future it might be better to use a quantum-resistent algorithm based on lattice cryptography.
If you send the encrypted numbers and a public key, another computer can perform arithmetic on the number and scalar values without seeing the actual values.
Applying it to Geofences
Encrypted coordinates and the public key are POSTed to the server
Originally I was hoping to find if you were in the box by testing this:
latitude_offset = (north - latitude) * (south-latitude)
The number would be negative for south < latitude < north, and positive in any other
condition. It would also be difficult to find north and south by factoring the result.
Unfortunately, multiplying encrypting numbers is not possible in the Paillier
cryptosystem. I got this funny error:
Anyway, you can obfuscate offsets by multiplying by a random scalar instead:
north_offset = (north - latitude) * random()
south_offset = (south - latitude) * random()
One of the offsets should be positive and the other negative, but the random factor makes it difficult to figure out the true offset to the geofence. Combined with rate-limiting, this could make your fence exta-secret.
Going forward
I would like to:
- calculate geofences for more complex shapes, by breaking them into rectangles or triangles
- calculate distance, using a different cryptosystem which allows multiplication
Libraries used
Using Brian Thorne's <a href="https://github.com/hardbyte/paillier.js">homomorphicjs</a> on the client, and Australia NICTA's <a href="https://github.com/NICTA/python-paillier">Python-Paillier</a> on the server
License
MIT license