Nemesis: Combating Abusive Information in Encrypted Messaging with Private Reporting

Rui Lian, Yulong Ming, Chengjun Cai, Yifeng Zheng, Cong Wang, Xiaohua Jia

Research output: Chapter in book / Conference proceedingConference article published in proceeding or bookAcademic researchpeer-review

Abstract

Abusive messages spread rapidly within popular end-to-end encrypted messaging services (EEMSs) due to the inability to conduct content moderation on plaintext messages. This issue has turned EEMSs into breeding grounds for fake news, misinformation, and other viral abusive content. However, enabling the identification of abusive information without careful consideration can compromise the cherished confidentiality feature of EEMSs. To address this issue, we propose Nemesis, a privacy-friendly, user-reporting-based content moderation system for EEMSs. In Nemesis, users can privately report abusive messages, and the system traces the source if the report count exceeds a predefined threshold. Compared to existing systems, Nemesis offers three key advantages: 1) it supports flexible and adaptable thresholds to meet different content moderation needs, 2) it prevents dishonest reporters from disrupting the system, and 3) it better ensures the privacy of all users during the moderation process. Nemesis utilizes lightweight cryptographic techniques to achieve these goals, and evaluation results demonstrate its low overhead in securely identifying abusive messages and tracing their sources in EEMSs.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationComputer Security – ESORICS 2024 - 29th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, Proceedings
EditorsJoaquin Garcia-Alfaro, Rafał Kozik, Michał Choraś, Sokratis Katsikas
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages247-267
Number of pages21
ISBN (Print)9783031708893
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2024
Event29th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, ESORICS 2024 - Bydgoszcz, Poland
Duration: 16 Sept 202420 Sept 2024

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume14983 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference29th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, ESORICS 2024
Country/TerritoryPoland
CityBydgoszcz
Period16/09/2420/09/24

Keywords

  • Content moderation
  • End-to-end encryption
  • Threshold aggregation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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