RCN: DIMACS/Simons Collaboration in Cryptography

密码学是保护数据、通信和网络基础设施的最重要工具之一。在不断增长的数据量和相关计算需求的推动下，组织和个人正在将存储和计算外包给“云”。“随着我们的电子邮件、医疗、财务和其他个人信息越来越多地驻留在我们直接控制之外的系统中，并且对攻击者的价值越来越大，同时保证隐私、数据可用性和计算正确性的需求至关重要。这种数字现实对密码学提出了复杂的挑战，并要求我们的目标和思维模式发生范式转变。 这个由DIMACS和西蒙斯计算理论研究所领导的研究协调网络将汇集密码学家和其他人，以脱离密码学的传统目标，即相对狭窄的安全和认证通信，并显着推进最先进的系统，同时高效，高度安全和高度功能。 这个RCN项目的具体目标包括将研究人员聚集在一起，以促进和促进我们对以下问题的理解：从特定的棘手假设中可以获得哪些原语和性能;基本的权衡和不可能的结果;以及如何最好地推动系统设计者和实施者采用更安全的技术和实践。该项目将从西蒙斯研究所的2015年夏季密集计划开始，以启动合作并建立势头，然后是由DIMACS领导的为期两年的“特别关注”，该项目将持续到2017年夏季，并将其扩展到包括更多的人和更多的主题。 该项目将实现密码学的基础进步和实用性的实际进步，提供更高的安全性，灵活性和效率。这些进步有能力通过改善对社会产生积极影响：我们国家网络基础设施和网络连接物理基础设施的健壮性;银行，医疗保健，制造业，媒体等商业应用程序的安全性;以及个人可以控制和信任保护其个人数据的程度。参与者将在各个方面多样化，包括女性和其他代表性不足的群体;初级和高级参与者的混合;来自其他学科和密码学以外的其他计算机科学领域的人员;以及行业和学术参与者。

Cryptography is one of the most important tools in securing data, communication, and cyberinfrastructure. Driven by ever-increasing amounts of data and the associated computational demands, organizations and individuals are outsourcing storage and computation to "the cloud." As our e-mail, medical, financial, and other personal information increasingly reside in systems outside of our direct control and are of increasing value to attackers, the need to simultaneously guarantee privacy, availability of data, and correctness of computations is paramount. This digital reality poses complex challenges to cryptography and requires a paradigm shift in our goals and mode of thinking. This research coordination network, led by DIMACS and the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, will bring together cryptographers and others to depart from the traditional goals of cryptography, namely a relatively narrow focus on secure and authenticated communication, and significantly advance the state of the art toward systems that are simultaneously highly efficient, highly secure, and highly functional. Specific goals for this RCN project include bringing researchers together to facilitate and catalyze our understanding of: what primitives and performance can be obtained from specific intractability assumptions; fundamental tradeoffs and impossibility results; and how best to drive adoption by system designers and implementers of more secure technologies and practices. The project will start with an intensive Summer 2015 program at the Simons Institute to launch the collaboration and build momentum, followed by a two-year "special focus" led by DIMACS that will sustain the project through Summer 2017 and expand it to include more people and more topics. The project will enable both foundational advances in cryptography and practical advances in its usability, providing improved security, flexibility, and efficiency. These advances have the ability to positively impact society by improving: the robustness of our national cyber infrastructure and cyber-connected physical infrastructure; the security of commercial applications in banking, health care, manufacturing, media, and more; and the extent to which individuals can have control over and confidence in protection of their personal data. Participants will be diverse across a variety of dimensions, including women and other under-represented groups; a mix of junior and senior participants; people from other disciplines and other areas of computer science beyond cryptography; and both industry and academic participants.