CAREER: Practical verification of outsourced computations

许多计算服务正在转向“云”，因为云计算提供了经济和操作上的好处。然而，云服务不仅是由第三方操作的复杂黑匣子，而且拒绝提供服务保证。因此，这个项目不是试图让云服务更值得信赖（也就是说，给客户信任云的理由），而是明确地从云中移除信任：该项目正在构建给云客户保证的系统，即使是在任意服务故障的情况下。两个这样的系统涉及存储和函数计算。在存储系统下，挑战是使用客户端验证来抵御任意或恶意的云故障（丢失数据、返回过时数据、损坏数据、泄露数据等）。在函数计算系统中，客户端向服务器指定一个计算，服务器执行该计算并返回输出和辅助信息，客户端使用辅助信息有效地检查输出是否正确。该方法是将目前被认为不切实际的引人入胜的理论体系（无概率检验和交互式证明）加以调整并转化为实践。随着可靠而实用的计算在质量上的进步，该项目将使云计算对现有客户更安全，并促进云服务的采用。这将意味着更多的人为计算支付更少的费用，在整个计算生态系统中产生有益的影响。教育重点包括教研究生如何教书（应用K-12学生教学模式），研究生和本科生指导，课程开发，以及向弱势群体伸出援手。

Many computing services are moving to the "cloud" because cloudcomputing offers economic and operational benefits. However, cloudservices not only are complex black boxes operated by third parties butalso refuse to give service guarantees. Thus, instead of trying to makecloud services more trustworthy (that is, giving customers reasons toplace faith in the cloud), this project explicitly removes trust fromthe cloud: the project is building systems that give cloud customersguarantees, even under arbitrary service malfunctions. Two such systemsconcern storage and function computation.Under the storage system, the challenge is to use client-sideverification to resist arbitrary or malicious cloud malfunctions (losingdata, returning stale data, corrupting data, compromising data, etc.).Under the function computation system, a client specifies a computationto a server, the server executes it and returns the output and auxiliaryinformation, and the client uses the auxiliary information toefficiently check whether the output is correct. The approach is toadapt, and translate into practice, a fascinating body of theory (onprobabilistically checkable and interactive proofs) that is currentlythought to be impractical.With qualitative advances in reliable yet practical computing, thisproject will make cloud computing safer for existing customers and spurthe adoption of cloud services. This will mean more people paying lessfor computing, producing beneficial effects throughout the computationalecosystem. The educational thrusts include teaching graduate students toteach (applying the K-12 student teaching model), graduate andundergraduate mentoring, curriculum development, and outreach tounderrepresented groups.