IACR News
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
20 December 2020
Oregon State University; Corvallis, OR, USA
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Mike Rosulek <rosulekm at eecs.oregonstate.edu>
More information: https://jobs.oregonstate.edu/postings/96561
Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
- Verifiable computation
- Secure Multi Party Computation
- Privacy-preserving authentication
- Cryptographic primitives
- A PhD degree in Cryptography;
- Strong publication record;
- Strong mathematical and algorithmic CS background;
- Excellent programming skills;
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Katerina Mitrokotsa
More information: https://www.chalmers.se/en/about-chalmers/Working-at-Chalmers/Vacancies/Pages/default.aspx?rmpage=job&rmjob=9112
Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Your Profile:
- A PhD degree in Cryptography with connections to Machine learning;
- Publications
- Strong mathematical and algorithmic CS background;
- Excellent programming skills;
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Katerina Mitrokotsa
More information: https://www.chalmers.se/en/about-chalmers/Working-at-Chalmers/Vacancies/Pages/default.aspx?rmpage=job&rmjob=9089
17 December 2020
Shange Fu, Jiangshan Yu, Rafael Dowsley, Joseph Liu
Attacks can take advantage of this shutdown threshold, and attackers can even cleverly utilise financial derivatives of cryptocurrencies (whose gain is primarily affected by the change of coin price) to increase their potential gains. As the coin price may drop when successful attacks (such as double spending attacks) on the associated cryptocurrency are discovered, the financial derivatives may be leveraged by a rational adversary to gain extra profit from the launched attacks.
Lira Wang
Yang Tan
Olivier Blazy, Laura Brouilhet, Celine Chevalier, Patrick Towa, Ida Tucker, Damien Vergnaud
We introduce a new cryptographic primitive called Encryption schemes with Password-protected Assisted Decryption (EPAD schemes), in which a users decryption key is shared between a user device (or token) on which no assumption is made, and an online server. The user shares a human-memorizable password with the server. To decrypt a ciphertext, the user launches, from a public computer, a distributed protocol with the device and the server, authenticating herself to the server with her password (unknown to the device); in such a way that her secret key is never reconstructed during the interaction. We propose a strong security model which guarantees that (1) for an efficient adversary to infer any information about a users plaintexts, it must know her password and have corrupted her device (secrecy is guaranteed if only one of the two conditions is fulfilled), (2) the device and the server are unable to infer any information about the ciphertexts they help to decrypt (even though they could together reconstruct the secret key), and (3) the user is able to verify that device and server both performed the expected computations. These EPAD schemes are in the password-only model, meaning that the user is not required to remember a trusted public key, and her password remains safe even if she is led to interact with a wrong server and a malicious device.
We then give a practical pairing-based EPAD scheme. Our construction is provably secure under standard computational assumptions, using non-interactive proof systems which can be efficiently instantiated in the standard security model, i.e., without relying on the random oracle heuristic.
Onur Gunlu, Rafael F. Schaefer
Atsuki Momose, Ling Ren
This paper provides two results towards closing this gap. Both protocols have a quadratic communication complexity and have different trade-offs in resilience and assumptions. The first protocol achieves the optimal resilience of $f < n/2$ but requires a trusted setup for threshold signature. The second protocol achieves near optimal resilience $f \le (1/2 - \varepsilon)n$ in the standard PKI model.
Silvio Micali, Leonid Reyzin, Georgios Vlachos, Riad S. Wahby, Nickolai Zeldovich
After defining compact certificates, we demonstrate an efficient compact certificate scheme. We then show how to implement such a scheme in a decentralized setting over an unreliable network and in the presence of adversarial parties who wish to disrupt certificate creation. Our evaluation shows that compact certificates are 50--280$\times$ smaller and 300--4000$\times$ cheaper to verify than a natural baseline approach.
Yadi Ye, Leyou Zhang, Yi Mu
Mohammad Amin Rakeei, Farokhlagha Moazami
Amira Barki, Aline Gouget
Anna M. Johnston, Rathna Ramesh
Sri Aravinda KrishnanThyagarajan, Adithya Bhat, Giulio Malavolta, Nico Döttling, Aniket Kate, Dominique Schröder
This work formalizes VTS, presents efficient constructions compatible with BLS, Schnorr, and ECDSA signatures, and experimentally demonstrates that these constructions can be employed in practice. On a technical level, we design an efficient cut-and-choose protocol based on the homomorphic time-lock puzzles to prove the validity of a signature encapsulated in a time-lock puzzle. We also present a new efficient {range proof} protocol that significantly improves upon existing proposals in terms of the proof size, and is also of independent interest.
While VTS is a versatile tool with numerous existing applications, we demonstrate VTS's applicability to resolve three novel challenging issues in the space of cryptocurrencies. Specifically, we show how VTS is the cryptographic cornerstone to construct: (i) Payment channel networks with improved on-chain unlinkability of users involved in a transaction, (ii) multi-party signing of transactions for cryptocurrencies without any on-chain notion of time and (iii) cryptocurrency-enabled fair multi-party computation protocol.
Claude Carlet, Pierrick Méaux
Ryan Karl, Jonathan Takeshita, Taeho Jung
Mahdi Esfahani, Hadi Soleimany, Mohammad Reza Aref
15 December 2020
NTNU, Norway
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Dr. Anamaria Costache, anamaria.costache@ntnu.no
More information: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/197509/phd-candidate-in-cryptography
IMDEA Software Institute
Who should apply?
Applicants should be MSc students in computer science, mathematics or a related discipline. The applicants should in particular have strong background in mathematics and some background and interest in cryptography. Good teamwork and communication skills, including excellent spoken and written English are also required.
Working at IMDEA Software
The position is based in Madrid, Spain, where the IMDEA Software Institute is situated. The institute provides for travel expenses and an internationally competitive stipend. The working language at the institute is English.
Dates
The internship duration is intended to be for 4-6 months (with some flexibility). The starting period would be March 2021 or later.
How to apply?
Applicants interested in the position should submit their application at https://careers.software.imdea.org/ using reference code 2020-12-intern-mpc. Deadline for applications is January 25th, 2021.
For enquiries about the position, please contact: Ignacio Cascudo, ignacio.cascudo (at) imdea.org
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Ignacio Cascudo
More information: https://careers.software.imdea.org/