Cryptographic Code Obfuscation

When: Friday, September 15, 2017
Where: PGH 232
Time: 11:00 AM – Noon

Speaker: Dr. Brent Waters, University of Texas

Host: Dr. Thamar Solorio

A cryptographic code obfuscator takes as input the description of a program P and outputs a program P' that is functionally equivalent to the original, but should hide the inner workings of the original program to the maximal extent possible. Until very recently no general purpose obfuscators existed that were based on cryptographically hard problems; however, in 2013 researchers proposed the first candidate obfuscator for "indistinguishability obfuscation". Since then there has been a tremendous interest in the subject from the cryptography community.



In this talk I will first introduce the concept and define indistinguishability obfuscation. Then I will show techniques for building cryptographic applications from it. Finally, I will conclude with discussing the challenging open problems in the area.

Bio:

Dr. Brent Waters received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Princeton University in 2004. From 2004-2005, he was a post-doctoral at Stanford University then worked at SRI as a Computer Scientist. In 2008 he joined the faculty at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Waters' research interests are in the areas of cryptography computer security. His work has focused on Identity-Based Cryptography, Functional Encryption, and code obfuscation. He has award and invited papers. He is noted as a founder of Functional Encryption and Attribute-Based Encryption.



Dr. Waters is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, a Microsoft Faculty Fellow, a Sloan Research Fellowship, Packard Science and Engineering Fellowship, and Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) recipient and winner of the 2015 ACM Grace Murray Hopper award.