Michaelmas Term 2026 with Professor Alastair Beresford: Hiding in plain sight: the promises and pitfalls of secret communication

Strachey Lectures · Nov 5, 2026 · 40m

This lecture explores the topic of secret communication through the design and deployment of CoverDrop, a secure communication system designed in collaboration with The Guardian. The history of secret communication has been driven by the need for both confidentiality and anonymity. Over the last thirty years we’ve seen significant progress in the digital space, with encryption now widely deployed on the web and in personal messaging apps. Protecting the identity of communicating parties is comparatively underexplored, despite the fact that the timing, frequency, and volume of network traffic…