IACR News
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
21 April 2020
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Job PostingDue to the potential threat of quantum computers, the research community is re-evaluating the security of a number of protocols and systems in widespread use. At the very least it is necessary to replace some common cryptographic building blocks with post-quantum alternatives. However, in some settings, the resulting systems may not be practical. It is therefore appropriate to reconsider, from the ground up, these protocols and systems. This PhD project will initiate a study of such protocols and systems. The project will leverage the NIST post-quantum standardization process to form a clear picture of the current state of post-quantum crypto. The project will develop new lightweight solutions for certain applications such as the internet of things (IoT).
The project will be supervised by Professor Steven Galbraith, together with other members of the Cyber Security Foundry at the University of Auckland.
Required skills and experience: Bachelor with honours, or Masters degree, in either Engineering, Computer Science or Mathematics. Good mathematical knowledge and understanding of rigorous mathematical thinking. Good knowledge of cryptography and information security. Programming skills. Good communication skills, both written and spoken.
- Duration: 3 years
- Value: International Student Fees + stipend of NZ$ 27,900 per year.
- Application deadline: 20/5/2020
- Email your CV to Keshala De Silva, with the subject line "Application for PhD Studentship on Applications of post-quantum cryptography".
- If you have written a master thesis or similar, then please email a pdf of it.
- https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/study/study-options/find-a-study-option/mathematics/doctoral.html
- https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/study/applications-and-admissions/apply-now.html
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Steven Galbraith
Cryptanalysis Taskforce @ Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Job Posting(Yes ! We are still hiring despite COVID-19)
The Cryptanalysis Taskforce at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore led by Prof. Jian Guo is seeking for candidates to fill 3 postdoctoral research fellow positions on symmetric-key cryptography, including but not limited to the following sub-areas:- tool aided cryptanalysis, such as MILP, CP, STP, and SAT
- machine learning aided cryptanalysis and designs
- privacy-preserving friendly symmetric-key designs
- quantum cryptanalysis
- cryptanalysis against SHA-3 and AES
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Asst Prof. Jian Guo, guojian@ntu.edu.sg
More information: http://team.crypto.sg
20 April 2020
NIO; San Jose, California
Job PostingResponsibilities
- Design and build security products for connected and autonomous vehicles.
- Research security problems and solutions related to vehicles and transportation
- Design in-vehicle security mechanisms, such as secure vehicle network communication, on-car IDS/IPS, and firewall
Qualifications
- Excellent in security fundamentals, such as network security, applied cryptography, server security, and end-point security
- In-depth knowledge of Linux kernel and OS, and network protocols (TCP/IP, HTTP, MQTT, etc.)
- Worked with Secure Boot on Arm or Aurix processors
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with Linux kernel hardening
- Knowledge of CAN and vehicle system architecture
- Knowledge of security of various wireless technologies (such as BLE and NFC)
Closing date for applications:
Contact:
Marisela Peifer: Sr Manager, People Ops & Talent
Marisela.Peifer@nio.io
More information: https://jobs.lever.co/nio/8f29bd44-663b-4de2-b6e2-9e596495d5b9
3 July 2020
Event CalendarSubmission deadline: 3 July 2020
Ittai Abraham, Kartik Nayak, Ling Ren, Nibesh Shrestha
ePrint ReportWe present a lower bound for Byzantine Broadcast that relates the latencies of optimistic and synchronous commits when the designated sender is honest and while the optimistic commit can tolerate some faults. We then present two matching upper bounds for tolerating f faults out of n = 2f +1 parties. Our first upper bound result achieves optimal optimistic and synchronous commit latencies when the designated sender is honest and the optimistic commit can tolerate some faults. Our second upper bound result achieves optimal optimistic and synchronous commit latencies when the designated sender is honest but the optimistic commit does not tolerate any faults. The presence of matching lower and upper bound results make both of the results tight for n = 2f + 1. Our upper bound results are presented in a state machine replication setting with a steady state leader who is replaced with a view-change protocol when they do not make progress. For this setting, we also present an optimistically responsive protocol where the view-change protocol is optimistically responsive too.
Ahmad Almorabea
ePrint ReportZhichun Lu, Runchao Han, Jiangshan Yu
ePrint ReportDaniel Apon, Ray Perlner, Angela Robinson, Paolo Santini
ePrint ReportIn this work, we identify a large class of extremely weak keys and provide an algorithm to recover them. For example, we demonstrate how to recover 1 in $2^{47.72}$ of LEDAcrypt's keys using only $2^{18.72}$ guesses at the 256-bit security level. This is a major, practical break of LEDAcrypt.
Further, we demonstrate a continuum of progressively less weak keys (from extremely weak keys up to all keys) that can be recovered in substantially less work than previously known. This demonstrates that the imperfection of LEDAcrypt is fundamental to the system's design.
Thomas Pornin
ePrint ReportF. Betül Durak, Loïs Huguenin-Dumittan, Serge Vaudenay
ePrint ReportAmit Behera, Or Sattath
ePrint ReportHao Chen, Miran Kim, Ilya Razenshteyn, Dragos Rotaru, Yongsoo Song, Sameer Wagh
ePrint ReportKristian L. McDonald
ePrint ReportKristian L. McDonald
ePrint ReportAmir Jafari, Shahram Khazaei
ePrint ReportIn this article, we introduce and study an extremely relaxed security notion, called partial security, for which it is only required that any qualified set gains strictly more information about the secret than any unqualified one. To compensate the extreme imperfection, we quantify the efficiency of such schemes using a parameter called partial information ratio. Despite our compensation, partial security turns out weaker than the weakest mentioned non-perfect security notion, i.e., quasi-perfect security.
We present three main results in this paper. First, we prove that partial and perfect information ratios coincide for the class of linear SSSs. Consequently, for this class, information ratio is invariant with respect to all security notions. Second, by viewing a partial SSS as a wiretap channel, we prove that for the general (i.e., non-linear) class of SSSs, partial and statistical information ratios are equal. Consequently, for this class, information ratio is invariant with respect to all non-perfect security notions. Third, we show that partial and almost-perfect information ratios do not coincide for the class of mixed-linear schemes (i.e., schemes constructed by combining linear schemes with different underlying finite fields).
Our first result strengthens the previous decomposition theorems for constructing perfect linear schemes. Our second result leads to a very strong decomposition theorem for constructing general (i.e., non-linear) statistical schemes. Our third result provides a rare example of the effect of imperfection on the efficiency of SSSs for a certain class of schemes.
Asma Aloufi, Peizhao Hu, Yongsoo Song, and Kristin Lauter
ePrint Report19 April 2020
Tim Fritzmann, Georg Sigl, Johanna Sepúlveda
ePrint ReportThomas Agrikola, Geoffroy Couteau, Yuval Ishai, Stanislaw Jarecki, Amit Sahai
ePrint ReportThe main question we ask is whether every efficiently samplable distribution admits a pseudorandom encoding. Under different cryptographic assumptions, we obtain positive and negative answers for different flavors of pseudorandom encodings and relate this question to problems in other areas of cryptography. In particular, by establishing a two-way relation between pseudorandom encoding schemes and efficient invertible sampling algorithms, we reveal a connection between adaptively secure multi-party computation and questions in the domain of steganography.
Satō Shinichi
ePrint ReportOkan Seker, Thomas Eisenbarth, Maciej Liskiewicz
ePrint ReportIn this work, we propose a novel generic masking scheme that can resist both DCA and algebraic attacks. The proposed scheme extends the seminal work by Ishai et al. which is probing secure and thus resists DCA, to also resist algebraic attacks. To prove the security of our scheme, we demonstrate the connection between two main security notions in white-box cryptography: Side Channel Analysis (SCA) security and prediction security. Resistance of our masking scheme to DCA is proven for an arbitrary order of protection. Our masking scheme also resists algebraic attacks, which we show concretely for first and second order algebraic protection, and show how it can be generalized to any order. Moreover, we present an extensive performance analysis and quantify the overhead of our scheme, for a proof-of-concept protection of an AES implementation.