IACR News
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
08 December 2015
Bhanu Prakash Gopularam, Nalini. N
Goutam Paul, Souvik Ray
Shai Halevi, Yuval Ishai, Abhishek Jain, Eyal Kushilevitz, Tal Rabin
Since restricted interaction patterns cannot always yield full security for MPC, we start by formalizing the notion of "best possible security" for any interaction pattern. We then obtain the following results:
* Completeness theorem. We prove that the star interaction pattern is *complete* for the problem of MPC with general interaction patterns.
* Positive results. We present both information-theoretic and computationally secure protocols for computing arbitrary functions with general interaction patterns. We also present more efficient protocols for computing symmetric functions and for computing arbitrary functions over a chain.
* Negative results. We give evidence that our information-theoretic protocols for general functions will be hard to substantially improve on.
All of our protocols rely on a correlated randomness setup, which is *necessary* for computing general functions in our setting. In the computational case, we also present a generic procedure to make any correlated randomness setup *reusable*, in the common random string model.
Although most of our information-theoretic protocols have exponential complexity, they may be practical for functions on small domains (e.g., {0,1}^20), where they are concretely faster than their computational counterparts.
Jingwei Hu, Ray C.C. Cheung
Yandong Zheng, Hua Guo
07 December 2015
North Carolina State University
Successful security candidates must have a strong commitment to academic and research excellence, and an outstanding research record commensurate with the expectations of a major research university. Required credentials include a doctorate in Computer Science or a related field. While the department expects to hire at the Assistant Professor level, candidates with exceptional research records are encouraged to apply for a senior position. The department is one of the largest and oldest in the country. It is part of a top US College of Engineering, and has excellent and extensive ties with industry and government laboratories. The department’s research expenditures and recognition have been growing steadily as has the recognition of our impact in the areas of security, systems, software engineering, educational informatics, networking, and games. For example, we have one of the largest concentrations of NSF Early Career Award winners (24 of our current or former faculty have received one).
NCSU is located in Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, which forms one vertex of the world-famous Research Triangle Park (RTP). RTP is an innovative environment, both as a metropolitan area with one of the most diverse industrial bases in the world, and as a center of excellence promoting technology and science. The Research Triangle area is routinely recognized in nationwide surveys as one of the best places to live in the U.S. We enjoy outstanding public schools, affordable housing, and great weather, all in the proximity to the mountains and the seashore.
Closing date for applications: 15 December 2015
Contact: Security/Privacy Search Committee, security-search (at) csc.ncsu.edu
More information: https://jobs.ncsu.edu/postings/58679
Auckland, New Zealand, 8 August - 12 August 2016
Submission deadline: 15 March 2016
Notification: 10 May 2016
06 December 2015
Serge Vaudenay
University of Tartu, Estonia
Successful candidates will help to design and evaluate cryptographically secure mix-nets and perform other research duties to help with the project, coordinate and advise partners on implementing research prototypes (the candidate may or may not participate in implementing), and ensure the smooth administration of the project including the timely delivery of research output. (Some of these duties apply only for the postdoctoral researcher.) We expect candidates to be able to develop and devote significant time to their own research agenda around the theme of the project.
The EU H2020 project PANORAMIX requires travel to and collaboration with colleagues throughout the European Union. Full travel and equipment budget is available to support the activities of the project.
For any inquiries or to apply for the positions, submit a full research curriculum-vitae (cv), names of two references, and a research statement (obligatory for the postdoctoral researcher) to Prof Helger Lipmaa (firstname.lastname (at) ut.ee) clearly indicating the position sought.
The call for expressions of interest will remain open until a suitable candidate is appointed. However, the project starts from September 1, 2015, and will last for three years. In the case of interest, the candidates may later seek further employment but this is not necessarily guaranteed.
Closing date for applications: 1 February 2016
Contact: Contact: Helger Lipmaa
lead research fellow
Institute of Computer Science
University of Tartu, Estonia
firstname.lastname (at) ut.ee
More information: http://crypto.cs.ut.ee/Main/Positions
University of Bergen, Norway
About the project/work tasks
Analyze, design and implement symmetric cryptographic lightweight primitives. Establish new methods of algebraic cryptanalysis and implement them efficiently. Advance the theoretical understanding of the use of Nonlinear Feedback Shift Registers (NLFSRs) for the needs of symmetric key cryptography.
The research training
The PhD candidate should have a strong background in computer science or/and mathematics with relevance to cryptography and must participate in an approved educational program for a PhD degree within a period of 3 years.
Closing date for applications: 15 December 2015
Contact: Professor Tor Helleseth Tor.Helleseth (at) ii.uib.no or Professor Igor Semaev Igor.Semaev (at) ii.uib.no
More information: http://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/119559/phd-position-in-cryptology
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Position Purpose: The successful candidate will teach and coordinate at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. This position will work closely with an ARC Future Fellow in the area of cryptographic protocol design, with a focus on lightweight, useable and human-driven cryptography. A strong theoretical background and familiarity with modern developments in mathematical cryptography, as well as demonstrated capacity for creative research are essential.
Direct URL:
https://qut.nga.net.au/cp/index.cfm?event=jobs.checkJobDetailsNewApplication&jobid=D6F541A7-4DD7-7835-AA6A-896F12623CB9
Closing date for applications: 13 December 2015
Contact: Associate Professor Xavier Boyen
HR Contact: Anya Levina, HR Advisor
Job ID: 15533
Please see the official page for contact and application details.
More information: https://qut.nga.net.au/cp/index.cfm?search=15533
University of Luxembourg
The university offers a one year employment that may be extended up to five years. The successful candidates will be working in an exciting, international and multicultural environment. The university offers highly competitive salaries and is an equal opportunity employer.
We welcome applications from candidates who have completed a Ph. D. degree in Mathematics or Computer Science by March, 2016. Preference will be given to applicants with proven interest in security and graph theory.
Applications will be considered on receipt therefore applying before the deadline is encouraged.
For further information and to submit your application please visit:
http://emea3.mrted.ly/ved5
Deadline for applications:
7 Dec, 2015
Closing date for applications: 7 December 2015
Contact: Prof. Dr. Sjouke Mauw (sjouke.mauw (at) uni.lu) or
Dr. Rolando Trujillo Rasua (rolando.trujillo (at) uni.lu)
05 December 2015
Xi'an, China, May 30
Notification: 26 February 2016
From May 30 to May 30
Location: Xi'an, China
More Information: http://icsd.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/cpss16/
Aggelos Kiayias, Thomas Zacharias, Bingsheng Zhang
actions to ensure that the election authorities are not manipulating the election result.
This so-called ``end-to-end (E2E) verifiability\'\' is the hallmark
of current e-voting protocols; nevertheless,
thorough analysis of current systems is still far from
being complete.
In this work, we initiate the study of
e-voting protocols as ceremonies.
A ceremony, as introduced by Ellison,
is an extension of the notion of a
protocol that includes human participants as separate nodes of the system that
should be taken into account when performing the security analysis.
We propose a model for secure e-voting ceremonies
that centers on the two properties of end-to-end verifiability
and privacy/receipt-freeness and allows the consideration of
arbitrary behavioral distributions for the human participants.
We then analyze the Helios system
as an e-voting ceremony. Security in the e-voting ceremony model
requires the specification of a class of human behaviors with respect
to which the security properties can be preserved. We show how
end-to-end verifiability is sensitive to human
behavior in the protocol by characterizing the set of behaviors under which
the security can be preserved and also showing explicit scenarios where it fails.
Dan Boneh, Kevin Lewi, David J. Wu
We then show how to instantiate private constrained PRFs. Our first construction uses indistinguishability obfuscation and achieves our strongest notions of functionality and privacy. We also give two constructions based on concrete assumptions on multilinear maps which achieve slightly weaker notions of privacy and for more limited classes of constraints: namely, for the class of bit-fixing constraints and puncturing constraints.
Loi Luu, Viswesh Narayanan, Kunal Baweja, Chaodong Zheng, Seth Gilbert, Prateek Saxena
SCP where the throughput scales nearly linearly with the
computation: the more computing power available, the more blocks
selected per unit time. SCP is also efficient that the number of
messages it requires is nearly linear in the network size. The {\\em
computational scalability} property offers the flexibility to tune
bandwidth consumption by adjusting computational parameters (e.g.
proof-of-work difficulty). The key ideas lie in securely establishing
identities for network participants, randomly placing them in several
committees and running a classical consensus protocol within each
committee to propose blocks in {\\em parallel}. We further design a
mechanism to allow reaching consensus on blocks without broadcasting
actual block data, while still enabling efficient block
verification. We prove that our protocol is secure, efficient and
applicable to several case studies. We conduct scalability experiments
on Amazon EC2 with upto 80 cores, and confirm that SCP matches
its theoretical scaling properties.
Marc Green, Thomas Eisenbarth
Takanori Yasuda, Xavier Dahan, Kouichi Sakurai
Basically, if the ring is changed to any other ring, NTRU-like cryptosystem is constructible.
In this paper, we propose a variant of NTRU using group ring, which is called GR-NTRU.
GR-NTRU includes NTRU as a special case.
Moreover, we analyze and compare the security of GR-NTRU for several concrete groups.
It is easy to investigate the algebraic structure of group ring by using group representation theory.
We apply this fact to the security analysis of GR-NTRU.
We show that the original NTRU and multivariate NTRU are most secure among several GR-NTRUs which we investigated.
04 December 2015
Li Lin, Wenling Wu
IMDEA Software Institute, Madrid, Spain
The successful candidate will join the cryptography group led by Prof. Dario Fiore to work on a project within the area of homomorphic encryption and verifiable computation.
Applicants should have already completed, or be close to completing, a PhD in a relevant discipline. Applicants should have an excellent research track record in Cryptography, ideally with significant experience in homomorphic encryption, lattice-based and pairing-based cryptography. Solid programming skills and experience in implementing cryptographic protocols are required.
The position is based in Madrid, Spain where the IMDEA Software Institute is situated. Salaries are internationally competitive and are established on an individual basis within a range that guarantees fair and attractive conditions with adequate and equitable social security provision in accordance with existing national Spanish legislation. This includes access to an excellent public healthcare system. The working language at the institute is English.
The postdoctoral position is for 1 year with possibilities of renewal. The starting date is immediate starting from January 1, 2016.
Applicants interested in the position should apply at the link below. Review of applications starts immediately until the position is filled.