IACR News
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
28 April 2022
Peter Beerel, Marios Georgiou, Ben Hamlin, Alex J. Malozemoff, Pierluigi Nuzzo
ePrint ReportVlastimil Klima
ePrint ReportDedy Septono Catur Putranto, Rini Wisnu Wardhani, Harashta Tatimma Larasati, Howon Kim
ePrint ReportReo Eriguchi, Kaoru Kurosawa, Koji Nuida
ePrint ReportVarun Madathil, Sri AravindaKrishnan Thyagarajan, Dimitrios Vasilopoulos, Lloyd Fournier, Giulio Malavolta, Pedro Moreno-Sanchez
ePrint ReportAll known solutions to implement oracle-based contracts rely either on Turing-complete smart contracts or on trusted hardware. In particular, no solution comes with provable cryptographic guarantees that are compatible with many popular cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. In this work, we lay the foundations of oracle contracts for cryptocurrencies. We present game-based definitions that model the security properties of oracle contracts and we propose the first construction with provable security guarantees. As a contribution of independent interest and as our main technical building block, we show an efficient construction of \emph{witness encryption} for the following class of languages: $$ \{ (\vk, m) \in \mathcal{L} : \exists~\sigma \text{ s.t. }\mathsf{Verify}(\vk, \sigma, m) = 1\} $$ where $\sigma$ is a BLS digital signature on $m$. We show how this can be extended to the threshold settings and how to efficiently prove that the encrypted message has a certain structure. The former allows distribution of trust among several ``Oracles'' and to guarantee the latter, we develop a new batching technique for cut-and-choose, inspired by the work of Lindell-Riva on garbled circuits.
Petr Sedláček
ePrint ReportCarmit Hazay, Muthuramakrishnan Venkitasubramaniam, Mor Weiss
ePrint ReportOur main technical contribution is designing the first secret-sharing scheme that is equivocal, resists adaptive probing of a constant fraction of bits from each share, while incurring only a constant blowup in share size. Equivocation is a strong leakage-resilience guarantee, recently introduced by Hazay et al. (ITC`21). Our construction is obtained via a general compiler which we introduce, that transforms any secret-sharing scheme into an equivocal scheme against adaptive leakage. An attractive feature of our compiler is that it respects additive reconstruction, namely, if the original scheme has additive reconstruction, then the transformed scheme has linear reconstruction.
We extend our compiler to a general paradigm for protecting distributed primitives against leakage, and show its applicability to various primitives, including secret sharing, verifiable secret sharing, function secret sharing, distributed encryption and signatures, and distributed zero-knowledge proofs. For each of these primitives, our paradigm transforms any construction of the primitive into a scheme that resists adaptive party corruptions, as well as adaptive probing leakage of a constant fraction of bits in each share when the share is stored in memory (but not when it is used in computations). Moreover, the transformation incurs only a constant blowup in the share size, and respects additive reconstruction - an important feature for several of these primitives, such as function secret sharing and distributed encryption.
Naina Gupta, Arpan Jati, Anupam Chattopadhyay, Gautam Jha
ePrint ReportBy invoking multiple optimizations to leverage parallelism, pre-computation and memory access sharing, we obtain an implementation that could be fit into one of the smallest Zynq FPGA. On Zynq Ultrascale+, our design achieves an improvement of about 36.7%/35.4%/42.3% in Area×Time (LUTs×s) trade-off for KeyGen/Sign/Verify respectively over state-of-the-art implementation. We also evaluate our design as a co-processor on three different hardware platforms and compare the results with software implementation, thus presenting a detailed evaluation of CRYSTALS-Dilithium targeted for embedded applications. Further, on ASIC using TSMC 65nm technology, our design requires 0.227mm$^2$ area and can operate at a frequency of 1.176 GHz. As a result, it only requires 53.7μs/96.9μs/57.7μs for KeyGen/Sign/Verify operation for the best-case scenario.
27 April 2022
Santander, España, 19 October - 21 October 2022
Event CalendarSubmission deadline: 30 May 2022
Notification: 30 June 2022
Taipei, Taiwan, 12 July - 15 July 2022
SchoolWindsor, Canada, 24 August - 26 August 2022
Event CalendarSubmission deadline: 8 June 2022
Notification: 18 July 2022
26 April 2022
University of Bordeaux, France
Job Posting- Lattice algorithms and cryptanalysis (shortest or closest vector problems, LWE, for rings, modules or lattices)
- Algebraic number theory and lattices (geometry of numbers, ideals in numbers fields, automorphic forms)
- Quantum algorithms for lattices (security proofs, cryptanalysis)
To apply, please send your CV, a motivation letter and names of at least two persons who can provide reference letters.
The CHARM project is a collaboration between four scientific intitutions in France and in the USA. Members in Bordeaux are: Bill Allombert, Karim Belabas, Aurel Page, Alice Pellet-Mary, and Benjamin Wesolowski.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Benjamin Wesolowski, benjamin.wesolowski@math.u-bordeaux.fr
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Job PostingYou will be a member of the KASTEL Security Research Labs (https://zentrum.kastel.kit.edu) and the Topic "Engineering Secure Systems" of the Helmholtz Association. Your research is dealing with cryptographic protocols for privacy-preserving computations, e.g., applied to mobility or productions systems. It will result in both theoretical security concepts (protocol designs, security proofs, etc.) and their practical implementation (e.g., a demonstrator) for some application domain. The contract will initially be limited to 1 year, but can be extended to several years.
If you are interested, please send an email including your CV and a list of publications to andy.rupp@partner.kit.edu. Applications will be considered until the positions are filled.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Andy Rupp (andy.rupp@partner.kit.edu)
More information: https://crypto.kastel.kit.edu/english/research_group_rupp.php
Paderborn University, Department of Computer Science, Paderborn, Germany
Job PostingClosing date for applications:
Contact: Prof. Dr. Johannes Blömer (bloemer@upb.de)
More information: https://www.uni-paderborn.de/fileadmin/zv/4-4/stellenangebote/Kennziffer5167_Englisch.pdf
Villanova University, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Villanova, PA USA
Job PostingVillanova University ranks #49 National Universities in the USA (US News), is located in Villanova, west suburban of Philadelphia. Famous alumni include the current First Lady of the USA!
Requirements: Preferred to be in majors of CS/CE/EE, Applied Mathematics/Cryptography.
Skillful in programming Languages such as CC++, Python, VHDL/Verilog, and so on.
Deadline: better to start in Fall 2022/Spring 2023.
This research focuses on the security aspects of post-quantum cryptography and related implementations. Advisor and senior Ph.D. student will guide you to get started and work together on forthcoming challenges. You will not be fighting alone!!!
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Dr. Jiafeng Harvest Xie
More information: https://www.ece.villanova.edu/~jxie02/lab/
University of Connecticut, Computer Science and Engineering Dept.
Job PostingScope: The positions provide a great opportunity to work on timely topics in cryptography (both theory and applied), systems security, and privacy. A large part of our lab research is around security and privacy for blockchains. We target real-world problems and aim to provide secure and practical solutions backed by rigorous foundations and efficient implementations/thorough performance testing. We are also interested in conceptual projects that contribute in bridging the gap between theory and practice of Cryptography. Students will gain experience in topics around multiparty computation, FHE, zero-knowledge proofs, cryptography from physical assumptions, and distributed systems security (mainly blockchain-based systems and privacy-preserving machine learning).
More information: For more information about our current and previous projects please check https://ghadaalmashaqbeh.github.io/research/
About UConn: UConn is R1 Research University in Storrs, CT. It is well connected to New York, Boston, and Providence areas, offering easy access to other top research institutions and lead-industrial companies for research, collaborations, and internship opportunities. The CSE department at UConn has a large and strong cybersecurity group, and it is ranked 18 among all USA computer science programs in Cryptography (based on csranking.org).
Get in touch: For interested students, please send your CV, an overview of current/previous research experiences and skills/related background, and transcripts to ghada@uconn.edu
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Ghada Almashaqbeh
Huawei German Research Center, Munich
Job PostingTo support our research activities, we are looking for an enthusiastic and highly motivated PhD student Security &Trust - Connected, Cooperative, Automated Mobility (m/f/d)
Research Topic
- Perform research and develop new solutions for Trust Management in the Next-Generation CCAM technologies.
- Contribute to new mechanisms for assessing dynamic trust relationship based on Zero Trust and Subjective Logic.
- Define a trust model and trust reasoning framework based on which involved entities can establish trust for cooperatively executing safety-critical functions.
- Contribute to the research and development of technologies in the upcoming domain of Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM).
- Being involved in international initiatives including industry groups such as 5GAA, Gaia-X, DIF and Horizon Europe research projects.
- Completed master studies (or equivalent) in computer science, information technology, electrical engineering, or mathematics;
- Exposure and understanding of data protection and security development technologies;
- Good programming skill;
- Excellent collaboration and communication skills;
- Fluent in English;
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Dr. Ioannis Krontiris (ioannis.krontiris@huawei.com)
More information: https://apply.workable.com/huawei-16/j/708737847F/
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
Job PostingClosing date for applications:
Contact: Carla Ràfols: cryptophdupf@upf.edu
Université Libre de Bruxelles
Job PostingClosing date for applications:
Contact: jean-michel.dricot@ulb.be
More information: https://www.ulb.be/greffeintra/files/7734.pdf
TalTech, Centre for HW Security; Tallinn, Estonia
Job PostingRequirements: We are looking for motivated candidates with a strong background in circuit design. PhD candidates must have completed a Master's degree (or be about to complete). Previous expertise on Hardware Security/Cryptography is not required but is highly desirable. The candidates are expected to have the following core skills:
How to apply: Please submit your CV and transcripts to Prof. Pagliarini by email using the subject ‘PhD in Hardware Security’. Candidates with adequate backgrounds will be invited to interview over Skype. Applications are processed as they arrive. All positions have a tentative start date of September 2022. The nominal duration of a PhD degree is 4 years at TalTech. Salaries are approximately 1600 EUR/month (net), which allows for a comfortable standard of living in Tallinn.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Samuel Pagliarini via email, name.lastname@taltech.ee
More information: https://ati.ttu.ee/~spagliar/timeline/index.html