ITR: Cryptography: from user needs to protocol design

密码学是一种功能强大的安全工具，但在应用中尚未充分发挥其潜力。这个项目研究了在多个层面上使密码学更容易使用的方法：协议设计者、软件应用程序和政策制定者更容易使用。该项目自然分为三个领域，大致对应于上面的列表：-协议设计的形式化验证方法研究。这些方法将帮助设计者确保协议满足密码学和复杂性理论社区所接受的健壮的安全标准。-多功能加密原语的设计，其性能可以根据特定应用的需要进行调整。这包括关于现代效率和安全措施的密码原语的分析，例如，历史独立性、增量、前向安全性以及以上各项的组合使用。-分析个人用户和政策制定者的安全和隐私愿望，并研究针对他们的问题的创新解决方案。例如，该项目探索了在不侵犯用户隐私的情况下提供安全身份识别的身份证的设计。广泛影响：安全对于确保公众对信息基础设施的信心至关重要，而密码学是计算机安全的有力工具。然而，密码学目前未得到充分利用，经常被滥用。通过使加密工具更易于使用和理解，该项目旨在促进更多和更知情地使用密码学。该项目还旨在促进关于适当使用信息技术的全国性辩论，特别是探索在不损害国家安全的情况下保护个人隐私的方法。最后，该项目将有助于密码专家的教育，他们可以与非专家，如实施者和法律专家进行清晰的交流。

Cryptography is a powerful security tool that has not reached its full potential in applications. This project investigates approaches to making cryptography easier to use at multiple levels: easier for the protocol designer, for the software applications, and the policy maker. The project is naturally divided into three areas, roughly corresponding to the above list: - The study of formal verification methods for protocol design. Thesemethods will help the designer to make sure that protocols meet the robust security standards accepted by the cryptographic and complexity theory communities. - The design of versatile cryptographic primitives whose performance can be tuned to the needs of specific applications. This includes the analysis of cryptographic primitives with respect to modern efficiency and security measures, e.g., history independence, incrementality, forward security, and combined uses of the above. - The analysis of the security and privacy desires of individual usersand policy makers, and the study of innovative solutions to their problems. For example, the project explores the design of identification cards that provide secure identification without violating the privacy of the users.Broad impact: Security is vital to ensure public confidence in the information infrastructure, and cryptography is a potent tool for computer security.Yet, cryptography is currently under-utilized and frequently misused.By making cryptographic tools easier to use and understand, the project aims to facilitate increased and better informed use of cryptography. The project also aims to contribute to the national debate on appropriate uses of information technology, and, in particular, explore ways to protect individual privacy without damaging national security. Finally, the project will contribute to the education of cryptographic specialists who can communicate clearly with non-specialists, such as implementers and legal experts.