CAREER: Foundations of Cryptographic Proof Systems

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Modern cryptography began with the goal of protecting communications over public networks. Today, not only do we communicate with each other remotely, we also delegate our computations to cloud-based services. But can we trust the cloud? Just as cryptographic techniques developed in the last half century provided the foundation for secure communication on the Internet, new techniques provide similar mechanisms for ensuring privacy and integrity of computations. As these technologies mature and see deployment, it is important to carefully study their design and security. The focus of this project is on the theoretical foundations of cryptographic proof systems, a key primitive used to ensure privacy and integrity of computations. This project conducts a systematic study of the theoretical foundations of cryptographic proof systems that provide privacy and minimize proof size. The focus is on constructions from general and unstructured assumptions. This newly enables cryptographic proof systems from simpler and weaker cryptographic notions. In addition, through the careful study of the foundations of cryptographic proof systems, the project expands our understanding of the broader connections between proof systems and other core cryptographic notions like public-key encryption and witness encryption. By viewing these notions through the lens of cryptographic proof systems, this project paves new paths towards realizing these primitives from simpler cryptographic assumptions. This project also develops new educational material at all levels (from K-12 students to graduate students) focused on applied cryptography and the role it plays in securing digital systems and computations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.