Cryptography, theory

group_project

Visible to the public NSFSaTC-BSF: TWC: Small: Practical Plausibly Deniable Encryption through Low-Level Storage Device Behavior

Plausibly deniable encryption is the ability to hide that given data is on a device, whether the ability exists to decrypt it, or even that the data exists. Plausible deniability is a powerful property to protect data on devices the user has lost physical control over, such as protecting consumers from accidental mass disclosures of private data through misplaced devices. This issue is of particular concern for anyone who travels internationally with sensitive data, including human rights workers, diplomats, military personnel, or even business travelers.

group_project

Visible to the public TWC: Option: Medium: Collaborative: Authenticated Ciphers

OpenSSH reveals excerpts from encrypted login sessions. TLS (HTTPS) reveals encrypted PayPal account cookies. DTLS is no better. EAXprime allows instantaneous forgeries. RFID security has been broken again and again. All of these failures of confidentiality and integrity are failures of authenticated ciphers: algorithms that promise to encrypt and authenticate messages using a shared secret key.

group_project

Visible to the public TWC: Small: Collaborative: An Iterative Approach to Secure Computation

Secure multi-party computation (SMC) allows several mutually untrusting parties to perform joint computations while keeping their inputs private. This project develops new techniques for constructing two-party secure computation protocols with low communication overhead. Building on the PIs prior work for constructing special-purpose secure computation protocols for greedy algorithms, this project aims to develop new techniques that exploit the algorithmic structure of a function in order to develop more efficient secure computation protocols.

group_project

Visible to the public TWC: Medium: Scaling proof-based verifiable computation

This research addresses a fundamental problem in systems security: how can a machine specify a computation to another one and then, without executing the computation, check that the other machine carried it out correctly? Over the last several years, a new approach to this problem has emerged, based on refining cryptographic and theoretical tools, and incorporating them into built systems. However, despite exciting advances, the resulting systems are still not practical in the normal sense.

group_project

Visible to the public CAREER: Getting the Most out of Secure Multi-Party Computation

Our society is becoming increasingly reliant on powerful and interconnected computing devices that store much of our personal information. These devices present an ever-growing tension between the desire for our personal information to be private, and the desire to put our personal information to good use for our own convenience. In cryptography, problems that involve requirements of useful computation and privacy are understood through the lens of secure multi-party computation (SMPC).

group_project

Visible to the public CAREER: The Theoretical Foundations of Symmetric Cryptography

Cryptography is essential to ensure confidentiality and integrity of information. Due to their practicality, symmetric algorithms where the same secret key is used by the sender and the recipient underlie most practical deployments of cryptographic techniques. However, also as a result of this, symmetric cryptography suffers from an inherent tension between real world efficiency demands and provable security guarantees. This project investigates new technical advances aimed at narrowing the gap between provable security and the practical demands of symmetric cryptography.