Human Proxies in Cryptographic Networks: Establishing a new direction to end-to-end encryption with the introduction of the inner envelope in the echo protocol

Table of Contents / Inhaltsverzeichnis

1 - Introduction to Human Proxies

2 - Graph-Theory and Echo-Protocol

3 - The introduction of proxies in the friend list of a messenger

4 - Basic examples of a constellation of a Human Proxy

5 - Human Proxies in Relation to further Characteristics and Developments

5.1 - Proxies in political and social life

5.2 - In times of global indexing of all Human Beings, Human Proxies enable everyone to be able to delegate

5.3 - Human Proxies and Plausible Deniability

5.4 - Human Proxies and Data Retention: Beyond Cryptographic Routing

5.5 - Is the inner envelope a copy or the original?

5.6 - Human Proxies are currently a most modern because even the most complex remedies against mass-surveillance with totalitarian intentions

5.7 - From „Trepidation of Memory to „Trepidation of Relationship

6 - When machines steer machines: Assess everyone as a proxy

7 - Research and development perspective: proxifying proxied data (the meta level of Inner Envelopes) and the vision of interoperability of endpoints in communications

8 - Human Proxies – A new direction and level for End-to-End encryption

9 - Didactic questions

10 - References

„Everyone's a Proxy, baby - that's the truth!"

Hot Chocolate.

Human Proxies

in Cryptographic Networks

- Establishing a new direction to end-to-end encryption with the introduction of the inner envelope in the echo protocol

Uni Nurf

Abstract:

Human Proxies offer new directions to end-to-end encryption: End-A-to-End-Z encryption must be rethought when it turns out to be an End-B-to-End-Z encryption. And, Human Proxies raise questions that were neither answered by science, journalists nor the public.

Regular Proxies on a network are forwarding Internet requests, e.g., to download a webpage. Also, in political and social settings a Proxy as an intermediate, deputy or representative with a similar function is given.

Human Proxies now enable within the Encryption and Messenger Application Spot-On to choose a friend as a Human Proxy.

The Spot-On program is a most modern and elaborated encryption suite available for several operation systems and provides many innovations in applied cryptography. It builds based on the Echo Protocol a cryptographic network, that is beyond Cryptographic Routing.

With Human Proxies now a friend from the Messenger friends list sends out the chat message instead of the original sender.

The construct of the „Inner Envelope" behind the Human Proxy function also creates new cryptographic challenges, provides plausible deniability to included nodes, and offers new perspectives in encryption, its analysis and decryption:

As all messages in the network are encrypted, end-to-end encryption is new defined and gets with Human Proxies a potential second and plausible deniable start point. The essay in this book discusses some related aspects of Human Proxies and their referring’s to encryption, networking, graph theory and comparable social and political processes of Proxies.

This leads to a further general approach: Endpoints in Encryption are equipped by the application Spot-On with the vision of interoperability of endpoints in communications.

1 - Introduction to Human Proxies

The encryption suite Spot-On encrypts not only chat, email, and files as well as a web search in a distributed but only locally searchable URL database by establishing a network of encrypting network-nodes. In addition to numerous other cryptographic innovations, the software application has now furthermore introduced the function of Human Proxies in early 2023: The Human Proxies function is another developed aspect of the interesting Echo and its protocol (Spot-On 2013).

A proxy is generally a communication interface in a network of computers: a starting point or an instance for putting through or for forwarding chats and data on the Internet instead of the original address, e.g. the IP address.

The term proxy derives from the Latin word „procuratorem and means „to care for something, or with alternative terms it means also to be a „representative, a „delegate, an „intermediate or an „agent.

The proxy therefore works as an intermediary which accepts inquiries on the one hand and then establishes a connection to the other side via its own address. This is a usual basis for the Internet.

If the proxy is used as a network component, the actual address of a communication partner remains hidden from the other communication partner. That creates a certain anonymity. At the same time, a proxy is also a protective shield outward to fend off attacks at its (this) position and to protect internal nodes behind it.

Within the implementation in the encryption suite Spot-On, a friend in the Messenger's list of friends is defined as a proxy by the sender of the message. A user or sender can thus send the message to the recipient via another friend.

The function is also available in the messenger Goldbug, which offers a simpler graphic user interface of the Spot-On program. With the name Goldbug, the messenger is a reminiscence to the writer Edgar Alan Poe, who tells the short story of the same name about a so-called cryptogram - an encrypted riddle - in which three friends are included (PC World Magazin / Joos 2014, Kahle 2020, Poe 1843).

Since only encrypted packages are sent in the messenger network, it is not clear for the proxy network node what content it forwards or sends again.

The associated aspects and facts such as the peculiarity of the (multi-)encryption used and the Echo protocol related to the network should be explained further below, also the question should be investigated to what extent Human Proxies redefine the end-to-end encryption or lift it to a new level.

Because: With Human Proxies, the end point of an end-to-end encryption is placed on another end or starting point - without decoding or breaking the encryption. An „Inner Envelope" with the same (encrypted) message (within a message of the original sender) enables to send out the message (still in the encrypted cipher-text) from another node defined by the original sender:

A friend from the sender's messenger-friends-list takes over the shipping instead of the original sender.

This not only offers the opportunity for a discussion of technical, social, and legal-philosophical questions, but the construct of the „Inner Envelope" also creates new cryptographic challenges and offers new perspectives in encryption, its analysis and decryption.

In particular, the end-to-end encryption experiences a Copernican turn: the end-point of a graph in the network is no longer the end-point we are talking about. The sender can be any end-or starting-point in the network with Human Proxies.

Its network of relationships (e.g., to a friend acting as a Human Proxy) can remain unknown in an external view of the network because the key-exchange is in the past and this friend in the network does not have to appear until this node is finally addressed.

We will address that in a later section.

Let us first look at the basis of the encrypted network: the Echo and what role individual routes in the network can take, considering a view in the theory of the graphs.

2 - Graph-Theory and Echo-Protocol

Individual users, respective node-instances or servers within the Spot-On program, are connected via the Echo protocol established within the network.

Echo means simplified that a user forwards an encrypted packet to all users or nodes connected. Just as you call into the forest (aka node), the Echo resounds back (to all).

Each instance tries to decipher and unpack any passing packet with all the keys present locally in the node. This is successful if a legible original text (also called plain-text) arises from the cipher-text of the sent respective incoming package: Then the key was suitable and the attempt to decrypt was successful.

This is the case if the decrypted text is identified as the original plaint-text via a hash value. The hash is a unique, short string that is derived from an overall text but is not reversible, i.e., cannot be reverted back into the overall text. (The hash value is included in the program Spot-On within the encrypted packet and since the hash function is not reversible, this does not harm the encryption).

This means that the Echo in the network can always be seen in relation to an analyzable graph design.

A graph is an abstract structure in the graph theory that represents a lot of objects together with the connections existing between these objects: colloquially, a route simplifies as a route-plan via various stations (Berge 1958, Jungnickel 1994, Bollobás 2002, Diestel 2010).

If all nodes forward a packet to all connected nodes, a packet respective a message always takes a very individual network route that can be represented as a graph in the network until it reaches the recipient. And ultimately, a message will pass many network nodes.

In each node, a specific function called „Congestion Control" ensures that double (redundant) packets - i.e., messages that have already come to the node and with which attempts were made with all known keys to unpack and decipher a message - are not once again subjected to a decryption attempt.

Based on the determination of a hash value for the packet, the node knows whether this packet with exactly this hash-value has already been analyzed. If this