Callisto: A Cryptographic Approach to #MeToo

Monday, January 28, 2019 - 10:00 am10:30 am

Anjana Rajan, Callisto

Abstract: 

Three years ago, Callisto launched its sexual assault reporting platform on college campuses. Callisto recently launched a new product that expands our reach to support any survivor of sexual assault and profession sexual coercion in the United States.

In this new product, users are invited to an online "matching escrow" that will detect repeat perpetrators and create pathways to support for victims. Users of this product can enter the identity of their perpetrator into the escrow. This data can only be decrypted by the Callisto Options Counselor (a lawyer), when another user enters the identity of the same perpetrator. If the perpetrator identities match, both users will be put in touch independently with the Options Counselor, who will connect them to each other (if appropriate) and help them determine their best path towards justice. The client relationships with the Options Counselors are structured so that any client-counselor communications would be privileged. A combination of client-side encryption, encrypted communication channels, oblivious pseudorandom functions, key federation, and Shamir secret sharing keep data encrypted so that only the Callisto Options Counselor has access to user submitted data when a match is identified. This presentation will discuss Callisto’s cryptographic approach and infosec strategy to solve an urgent social justice problem.

Anjana Rajan, Callisto

Anjana Rajan is the Chief Technology Officer at Callisto, a non-profit that builds technology to combat sexual assault. In this role, Anjana leads the engineering, security and design teams, with a focus on building products that protect the privacy and civil liberties of sexual assault survivors.

Previously, Anjana lived in London and worked at Palantir Technologies, where she built and deployed products in the Middle East. Before that, she worked as a technologist at Johnson & Johnson focusing on building new software products across global healthcare markets. Additionally, Anjana was a triathlete on Team USA and raced at two Triathlon World Championships; she earned her status as a professional athlete for USA Triathlon in 2015.

Anjana was a Knight Scholar at Cornell University and received her bachelor's and master's degrees in Operations Research and Information Engineering, and is an alumna of Y Combinator.

BibTeX
@conference {226329,
author = {Anjana Rajan},
title = {Callisto: A Cryptographic Approach to {$\#$MeToo}},
year = {2019},
address = {Burlingame, CA},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jan
}

Presentation Video