Speaker: Prof. Kris Gaj, ECE Department, George Mason University

Time and Date: 16:00-17:00 pm, May 16 2019

Place: Room 530 of Scientific Building, Handan Campus,Fudan University

Abstract:

    Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) refers to a new class of cryptographic algorithms that are resistant against all known attacks using quantum computers, but at the same time can be implemented by themselves using traditional computing platforms, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and hardware accelerators based on integrated circuits. PQC is a cryptographic community's response to the emerging threat of full-scale quantum computers, expected to be developed within the next decade or two. The main goal of PQC is to replace the existing public-key cryptography standards, protecting the majority of the Internet traffic, such as RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). The PQC standardization process, launched by the American National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2016, has recently reached Round 2, with 26 candidates remaining. These candidates represent five major PQC families: code-based, hash-based, isogeny-based, lattice-based, and multivariate, and can be used to implement encryption, digital signature, and key exchange schemes of the future. To date, the assessment of candidates has focused primarily on their security and general-purpose microprocessor efficiency. The goal of this talk is to set the foundation for the early, systematic, and comprehensive study of the hardware and embedded system efficiency of the most promising PQC candidates, through the employment of novel methodologies, such as Software/Hardware Codesign and High-Level Synthesis. With this groundwork, we believe that the development time for full hardware and software/hardware implementations can be significantly reduced, allowing fair and comprehensive benchmarking of the most promising candidates, and a fair choice of the most efficient and flexible algorithms as the future American and de facto worldwide PQC cryptographic standards. The next 5–10 years are very likely to bring the biggest revolution in cryptography, since the invention of public-key cryptography in mid-1970s. The proposed comprehensive benchmarking effort will give all involved researchers a unique opportunity to influence the choice of future cryptographic standards, which are likely to be developed and deployed within the next decade and remain in use for the significant portion (if not the rest) of the 21st century.

Biography:

Kris Gaj received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Warsaw University of Technology in Warsaw, Poland. He was a founder of Enigma, a Polish company that generates practical software and hardware cryptographic applications used by major Polish banks. At George Mason University, he does research and teaches courses in the area of cryptographic engineering and reconfigurable computing. His research projects center on new hardware architectures for secret key ciphers, hash functions, public key cryptosystems (including four major families of post-quantum cryptosystems), and codebreaking, as well as benchmarking of cryptographic hardware, high-level synthesis, and software/hardware codesign. He is the co-director of the Cryptographic Engineering Research Group. He has been a member of the Program Committees of CHES, CryptArchi, CT-RSA, DATE, DSD, FPT, LightSec, PQCrypto, Quo Vadis Cryptology, ReConFig, ReCoSoc, and SPACE; a General Co-chair of CHES 2008 in Washington D.C., a Program Co-chair of CHES 2009 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a Program Co-chair of SHARCS 2012 in Washington D.C. He is an author of a book on breaking German Enigma cipher during World War II, and a co-author of the book on Cryptographic Engineering. In 2013, he was awarded two patents for new Montgomery Multiplication Architectures.