IACR News
Here you can see all recent updates to the IACR webpage. These updates are also available:
22 May 2020
Seunghwa Lee, Hankyung Ko, Jihye Kim, Hyunok Oh
ePrint ReportThis paper proposes a new efficient verifiable convolution neural network (vCNN) framework, which allows a client to verify the correctness of the inference result rapidly with short evidence provided by an untrusted server. Notably, the proposed vCNNs framework is the first practical pairing-based zk-SNARK scheme for CNNs, and it significantly reduces space and time complexities to generate a proof with providing perfect zero-knowledge and computational knowledge soundness. The experimental results validate the practicality of vCNN with improving VGG16 performance and key size by 18000 fold compared with the existing zk-SNARKs approach (reducing the key size from 1400 TB to 80 GB, and proving time from 10 years to 8 hours).
19 May 2020
Announcement
Rome, Italy, 19 October - 22 October 2020
Event CalendarSubmission deadline: 22 June 2020
Notification: 22 July 2020
SAFCSP, Riyadh Saudi Arabia
Job PostingJob Description
We are looking for talented and experienced people to work as a Crypto. Systems Developer in Cryptographic Research and Development department.
Responsibilities- Design cryptographic solutions
- Provide implementations in any required programming language.
- Provide implementations for Web based, and Desktop applications.
- Team work
- Research and development in Cryptographic field
Education
Bachelor (or higher) degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering or any related field.
Requirements
- Good knowledge of Object Oriented Programming Languages, design patterns and principles.
- An advanced knowledge in one of the following programming languages
- Java, C++, C#
- Some experience with C Programming Language
- Good understanding of Digital Logic design.
- Outstanding Grades in Math.
- Excellent writing and speaking skills in English
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Please apply using the link.
More information: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/1843094167
Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy in Bochum, Germany
Job PostingOur Junior Research Group program offers young scientists the opportunity to develop their own independent research program. We welcome applicants from all areas of security and privacy, including foundations, cryptography, software and hardware security, as well as human and other interdisciplinary aspects (e.g., computer science and psychology, economy, law, policy, ethics, etc). The positions are funded for 5 years. Applicants must have completed a doctoral degree in computer science or related areas and must have demonstrated outstanding research vision, and potential to successfully lead a research group. Successful candidates are expected to build a highly visible research agenda, to mentor Ph.D. students, and to participate in collaborative projects.
The Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (https://www.mpi-sp.org) is located in Bochum, Germany. We maintain an open, international, and diverse work environment and seek applications from outstanding researchers regardless of national origin. Our working language is English. We collaborate with several major research institutions worldwide and have high international visibility. We offer competitive salaries and support for Ph.D. students, as well as generous travel, administrative, and technical support.
Please apply at https://apply.cis.mpg.de/register/mpispjrgl
You need to upload your CV, a research plan, an optional teaching statement, and 3-5 references. Reviewing of applications will start immediately and will continue until the positions are filled. The expected starting date for the positions is Fall 2020, open to negotiations. Informal inquiries can be addressed to applications-jrgl@mpi-sp.org
Closing date for applications:
Contact: applications-jrgl@mpi-sp.org
More information: https://www.mpi-sp.org
18 May 2020
Xie Zhijie, Zhang Min, Yin Anqi, Li Zhenhan
ePrint ReportArchanaa S. Krishnan, Yaling Yang, Patrick Schaumont
ePrint ReportBenny Applebaum, Eliran Kachlon, Arpita Patra
ePrint ReportWe study the round complexity of general secure multiparty computation in the BGW model. Our main result shows that every functionality can be realized in only four rounds of interaction, and that some functionalities cannot be computed in three rounds. This completely settles the round-complexity of perfect actively-secure optimally-resilient MPC, resolving a long line of research.
Our lower-bound is based on a novel round-reduction technique that allows us to lift existing three-round lower-bounds for verifiable secret sharing to four-round lower-bounds for general MPC. To prove the upper-bound, we develop new round-efficient protocols for computing degree-2 functionalities over large fields, and establish the completeness of such functionalities. The latter result extends the recent completeness theorem of Applebaum, Brakerski and Tsabary (TCC 2018, Eurocrypt 2019) that was limited to the binary field.
Alexei Zamyatin, Zeta Avarikioti, Daniel Perez, William J. Knottenbelt
ePrint ReportRecently, two improved sublinear light clients were proposed: to validate the blockchain, NIPoPoWs and FlyClient only download a polylogarithmic number of block headers, sampled at random. The actual verification of payments, however, remains costly: for each verified transaction, the corresponding block must too be downloaded. This yields NIPoPoWs and FlyClient only effective under low transaction volumes.
We present TxChain, a novel mechanism to maintain efficiency of light clients even under high transaction volumes. Specifically, we introduce the concept of contingent transaction aggregation, where proving inclusion of a single contingent transaction implicitly proves that $n$ other transactions exist in the blockchain. TxChain reduces the transaction verification overhead of (sublinear) light clients from $O(n)$ to $O(1)$ in the best and $O(n/c + log_c(n))$ in the worst case, for a blockchain constant $c$. We deploy TxChain on Bitcoin without consensus changes and implement a soft fork for Ethereum. Finally, we demonstrate effectiveness in the cross-chain setting: we implement TxChain as a smart contract on Ethereum to efficiently verify Bitcoin payments.
Darrow R Hartman
ePrint ReportZhuotao Liu, Yangxi Xiang, Jian Shi, Peng Gao, Haoyu Wang, Xusheng Xiao, Bihan Wen, Yih-Chun Hu
ePrint ReportMichel Abdalla, Dario Catalano, Romain Gay, Bogdan Ursu
ePrint ReportYuval Ishai
ePrint ReportSanjit Chatterjee, R. Kabaleeshwaran
ePrint ReportMing Li, Anjia Yang, Xinkai Chen
ePrint Report17 May 2020
Security & Privacy Group ( Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security) University of Birmingham
Job PostingApplications are invited for one postdoc position in designing hardware architectures for accelerating homomorphic computing on the encrypted data. The researcher will perform algorithmic optimizations, design optimized hardware architectures, and explore the design-space to construct efficient homomorphic encryption processors on FPGA platforms.
Please apply to the official application portal before 1st June 2020.
More information: https://bham.taleo.net/careersection/external/jobdetail.ftl?job=200001O8&tz=GMT%2B01%3A00&tzname=Europe%2FLondon
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Dr. Sujoy Sinha Roy
More information: https://bham.taleo.net/careersection/external/jobdetail.ftl?job=200001O8&tz=GMT%2B01%3A00&tzname=Europe%2FLondon
Northern Arizona University, School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS); Flagstaff
Job PostingDuties include:
- Perform research in the broad area of hardware-centric cybersecurity
- Publish papers and present research results at conferences and symposia
- Write grant and contract proposals
- Supervise and coordinate the efforts of PhD, MS, and undergraduate students on a day-to-day basis
- Assist in preparing progress reports to funding agencies
- Earned doctoral (Ph.D. or Sc.D.) degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or closely related area by the start date.
- Demonstrated expertise in one or more of the following areas: computer architecture and microarchitecture, hardware-based security and cryptographic systems
- Demonstrated academic excellence through scholarly publications, i.e. at least one publication in top-ranked conferences/journals
- Excellent communication skills; experience in effectively working with people from a variety of culturally diverse backgrounds; experience in mentoring undergraduate and graduate students
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Dr. Paul Flikkema (paul.flikkema@nau.edu)
More information: https://in.nau.edu/human-resources/current-job-openings/
University of Warsaw
Job PostingWe are looking for talented and motivated Post-Docs to work on the ERC AdG project PROCONTRA: Smart-Contract Protocols: Theory for Applications. The project is about theoretical and applied aspects of blockchain and smart contracts.
The ideal candidates should have a PhD degree in cryptography (or related field) from a leading university, and a proven record of publications in top cryptography/security/TCS venues.
We offer competitive salary and a budget for conference travel and research visit.
The project is expected to start on Sep 1, 2020. There is no specific deadline for this call, but we will start looking at the applications from Jun 15th, 2020. Please apply using the link provided below.
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Stefan Dziembowski
More information: https://www.crypto.edu.pl/positions
University of Warsaw
Job PostingWe are looking for talented and motivated PhD students to work on the ERC AdG project PROCONTRA: Smart-Contract Protocols: Theory for Applications. The project is about theoretical and applied aspects of blockchain and smart contracts. It is mostly focused on theory, but it has also some programming tasks.
The ideal candidates should have an MSc degree in computer science or mathematics from a leading university, and be familiar with the probability theory, computational complexity, algebra, and number theory. The knowledge of cryptography, information theory, and game theory is a significant plus, but is not a prerequisite. The candidates must be fluent in written and spoken English
The successful candidates will be enrolled to the PhD program at the University of Warsaw (Poland). The deadline for the application to this program is Jun 28, 2020, but please contact the project’s PI (Stefan Dziembowski) before applying there. Please do it by Jun 15, 2020 via the web-form available at the address provided below.
Starting date: Oct 1, 2020
Expected salary: around 5,000 PLN/month (net)
Duration: 4 years (negotiable)
Closing date for applications:
Contact: Stefan Dziembowski
More information: https://www.crypto.edu.pl/positions
Multiple Fully Funded PhD positions in Doctoral Program Logical Methods in Computer Science (LogiCS)
Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), Austria
Job PostingClosing date for applications:
Contact: Mihaela Rozman, Technische Universitat Wien, Favoritenstrasse 9-11, 1040 Wien
More information: https://logic-cs.at/phd/