IACR News
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
19 February 2024
Narendra Kumar Patel, Hemraj Shobharam Lamkuche
Ischia, Italy, 7 May 2024
Submission deadline: 21 February 2024
Notification: 20 March 2024
Technical University of Munich, Germany
A position for a PhD student in Cryptography is available in the newly formed research group led by Lorenz Panny in the Department of Mathematics, within the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology, located at the Garching campus.
The group was established in 2023 and primarily focuses on mathematical aspects of post-quantum cryptography: for example, this includes topics such as classical and quantum cryptanalysis, cryptographic constructions based on isogenies of abelian varieties and other algebraic objects, and efficient algorithms for both attacks and secure implementations.
Please refer to the linked website for details on the position and application process.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Lorenz Panny, lorenz.panny@tum.de
More information: https://portal.mytum.de/jobs/wissenschaftler/NewsArticle_20240216_105137
University of Birmingham, UK
Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) allow users to run their software in a secure enclave while assuring the integrity and confidentiality of data and applications. However, cloud computing these days relies heavily on peripherals such as GPUs, NICs, and FPGAs. Extending the security guarantees of CPU-based TEEs to such accelerators is currently not possible. New technologies are being proposed to address this, notably the PCIe Trusted Device Interface Security Protocol (TDISP). In this project, together with researchers at the University of Southampton, we will thoroughly evaluate the security guarantees of this new PCIe standard and its ability to provide trusted execution against strong adversaries.
Suitable candidates need a strong background in system-level programming (e.g. Rust, C, C++) and/or embedded systems/hardware security. We also expect a first-class UG or PG degree in a relevant subject (e.g. computer science or electrical engineering).
Funding: The studentship covers a stipend and tuition fees (we might be able to cover overseas student fees depending on the candidate and circumstances). The stipend provides an annual maintenance allowance of £18,622. The allowance is paid as a (usually) tax-free stipend and its rate is usually incremented on 1 October each following year. We provide personal laptops and travel funding to attend conferences (subject to prior approval) and one summer school (or equivalent). Students will also be given the chance to participate in teaching activities, including creating and grading exercises as well as conducting laboratory and tutorial sessions, which are compensated separately.
How to apply: Please first send your CV, a transcript with a list of courses and grades, and a description of your research interests to d.f.oswald (at) bham.ac.uk before 15 March 2024, with the title of the position ("PhD IOTEE: Securing and analysing trusted execution beyond the CPU") in the subject line. We will then contact you about potential next steps.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: For informal enquiries, contact David Oswald d.f.oswald@bham.ac.uk
More information: https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~oswalddf/phd-projects.php
Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P)
• Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity
• Quantum Cryptography
• Quantum Blockchain
Key duties:
The Postdoctoral researcher will be expected to:
• Publish in high impact journals in the field.
• Participate to the supervision of PhD students and research internships.
Criteria of the candidate:
• PhD in the field of Cryptography, Computer security or any related field.
• Strong publication record in high impact conferences / journals.
• Very good programming skills (e.g., C, C++, Python), familiarity with Linux
• Proficiency in English and ability to work in a team
• Outstanding analytical and problem-solving skills
Employment terms:
The successful candidate will be employed by Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) based at Benguerir (50 km north of Marrakech), Morocco. The net salary per month is 2000 USD. The initial appointment as Postdoctoral researcher will be for one-year renewable depending on satisfactory performance.
Applications and selection procedure:
Applications must be sent using a single electronic zipped folder with the mention of the job title in the mail subject. The folder must contain:
• A 1-page cover letter with main research interests.
• A detailed CV.
• A 1-page brief research statement.
• Contact information of 2 references (Applicants are assumed to have obtained their references’ consent to be contacted for this matter).
Contact: Prof. Mustapha Hedabou (mustapha.hedabou@um6p.ma)
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Prof. Mustapha Hedabou
Engineering Department, Horizen Labs, Remote
We are looking for a talented and motivated engineer who will contribute to building the cryptographic infrastructure of our Web 3.0-enabled blockchain ecosystem. You will be involved in the design and implementation of blockchain scaling solutions, primarily based on zero-knowledge cryptography, with the aim of dramatically reducing the costs that blockchain operators incur when deploying their products. Our international team works in a stimulating and innovative environment, where technical expertise and experience contribute to the development of cutting-edge blockchain technology. You will be joining a small, deeply driven team of highly technical minds in a culture of openness, pragmatism, and ownership of challenging problems that span software engineering, systems design, cryptography, and computing.
What You’ll Own- Design and implementation of blockchain-based cryptographic solutions leveraging modern cryptography (ZK, MPC, FHE).
- Assume technical responsibility of novel systems while identifying areas for innovative research and development.
- Writing reusable, testable, and efficient code with a focus on best practices and security.
- Help shape the future of the company where you will be intimately involved in the strategic decision making process and immediately see the impact of your contributions.
- Attend conferences and find opportunities in the on-chain ecosystem.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: People & Talent Team - recruiting@horizenlabs.io
More information: https://boards.greenhouse.io/horizenlabs/jobs/5075393004
CSEM, Neuchâtel CH
Collaborating with two experienced teams in security, digital hardware and software, you will contribute to the development of an embedded anchor of trust for future generation of sustainable IoT devices, enabling features such as post quantum cryptography, threshold cryptography, distributed architectures, or reconfigurability over the air. You will be working closely with a diverse team of engineers and researchers, and you will take a leading role in transforming a vision into tangible IPs.
Your responsibilities
- Research in applied cryptography and implementations for embedded devices.
- Implement cryptography and security primitives for embedded devices; mainly HW/SW co-design.
- Develop Proof of concepts based on advanced cryptography topics.
- Harden security modules against side channel attacks, software attacks and other threats.
- Adopt a holistic approach to design and implement robust features yielding solid foundations for end-to-end security.
- Propose innovative security IPs, challenge them against state of the art and review them with peers.
Know-how
- PhD graduate or an MSc graduate.
- Background in one or more of these fields: digital design, embedded software design and applied cryptography.
- A high motivation to progress and excel in the field of applied cryptography and embedded security.
- Experience in digital hardware or embedded software development.
- Programming skills in VHDL, C, Python (or equivalent).
- Fluent in English. French or German are an advantage.
Interpersonal skills
- Natural curiosity and ability to adapt to new situations.
- Autonomous and hands-on, motivated to take initiative in the development of innovative solutions.
- Open-minded attitude and well-developed team-spirit.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Damian Vizar
More information: https://www.csem.ch/en/jobs/151354/
Tarragona, Spanien, 2 October - 4 October 2024
Submission deadline: 15 May 2024
Notification: 23 June 2024
Virtual event, Anywhere on Earth, 28 February - 29 February 2024
Radboud University, Netherlands
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Simona Samardjiska
More information: https://www.ru.nl/en/working-at/job-opportunities/phd-candidate-in-post-quantum-cryptography
Janice Jianing Si, Sharma Tanusree, Kanye Ye Wang
Samir Jordan Menon, David J. Wu
By removing the need for offline communication, YPIR significantly reduces the server-side costs for private auditing of Certificate Transparency logs. Compared to the best previous PIR-based approach, YPIR reduces the server-side costs by a factor of $5.6\times$. Note that to reduce communication costs, the previous approach assumed that updates to the Certificate Transparency log servers occurred in weekly batches. Since there is no offline communication in YPIR, our approach allows clients to always audit the most recent Certificate Transparency logs (e.g., updating once a day). Supporting daily updates using the prior scheme would cost $30\times$ more than YPIR (based on current AWS compute costs).
Milad Seddigh, Seyed Hamid Baghestani
Minki Hhan
Evan Laufer, Alex Ozdemir, Dan Boneh
In this work we build zkPi, the first zkSNARKfor proofs expressed in Lean, a state of the art interactive theorem prover. With zkPi, a prover can convince a verifier that a Lean theorem is true, while revealing little else. The core problem is building an efficient zkSNARKfor dependent typing. We evaluate zkPion theorems from two core Lean libraries: stdlib and mathlib. zkPisuccessfuly proves 57.9% of the theorems in stdlib, and 14.1% of the theorems in mathlib, within 4.5 minutes per theorem. A zkPiproof is sufficiently short that Fermat could have written one in the margin of his notebook to convince the world, in zero knowledge, that he proved his famous last theorem.
Interactive theorem provers (ITPs) can express virtually all systems of formal reasoning. Thus, an implemented zkSNARKfor ITP theorems generalizes practical zero-knowledge's interface beyond the status quo: circuit satisfiability and program execution.
Leo de Castro, Kevin Lewi, Edward Suh
We demonstrate that WhisPIR requires significantly less communication than all other lattice-based PIR protocols in a stateless setting. WhisPIR is outperformed in computation only by SimplePIR and HintlessPIR when the database entries are large (several kilobytes). WhisPIR achieves this performance by introducing a number of novel optimizations. These include improvements to the index expansion algorithm of SealPIR & OnionPIR that optimizes the algorithm when only one rotation key is available. WhisPIR also makes novel use of the non-compact variant of the BGV homomorphic encryption scheme to further save communication and computation. To demonstrate the practicality of WhisPIR, we apply the protocol to the problem of secure blocklist checking, an important user-safety application in end-to-end encrypted messaging.
Michele Orrù, George Kadianakis, Mary Maller, Greg Zaverucha
We construct techniques for offloading foreign arithmetic from a zero-knowledge circuit including: (i) equality of discrete logarithms across different groups; (ii) scalar multiplication without requiring elliptic curve operations; (iii) proving knowledge of an AES encryption.
To achieve our goal, we employ techniques inherited from rejection sampling and lookup protocols. We implement and provide concrete benchmarks for our protocols.
Nils Fleischhacker, Mathias Hall-Andersen, Mark Simkin
Using our witness encryption scheme, we construct a simple and highly efficient laconic OT protocol, which significantly outperforms the state of the art in most important metrics.