Hello World! from Matthias

Hello World!

I am ESR5 and I am from Austria. I also go by the name ɱatthias ɱinihold and I have just started as one of the 15 fellows of the ring also known as early stage researchers in the ECRYPT-NET programme :-).


My background is mathematics, but I was always interested in the practical application side of say algebraic number theory and thus I enrolled in courses about cryptography and wrote my bachelor’s thesis at TU Vienna having a look into the Advanced Encryption Standard AES. Then my master’s thesis was about "Linear Codes and Applications in Cryptography" with some examples coded in Sage and the showcase of how multiple scientific fields - ranging from computational complexity theory and discrete mathematics to quantum physics - are combined in cryptography, making it an interesting and interdisciplinary field.


I'm glad to be part of an experienced team here at Ruhr-Universität Bochum under the supervision of Alexander May. The working title for my research as ESR5 @ ECRYPT-NET and thus my PhD-Thesis is Fully Homomorphic Encryption. Additionally to thoroughly dive into that I hope to learn and develop further skills and expertise in related fields over the next 3 years here.

In the caves of Is Zuddas (Sardinia)

In my opinion the exciting part of the ECRYPT-NET project with all it's international participants is that it has the opportunity to shape the future of transparent, easy to use yet secure cryptography accessible to a broad range of people thus taking an important role in our information society.


I am looking forward to working in this dynamic team and maybe this project provides the right environment, guidance and feedback to bring to light gems and fascinating structures within the next 3 years such as the rare aragonites people joining the trip to Is Zuddas (Sardinia) could marvel at recently, metaphorically speaking.


Followers are welcome and to all my fellows, see you soon at our next meeting(s)!


"I'll be back!" (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Bits of me

Ciao a tutti, my name is Marco and I have just started my PhD at the University of Bristol under the supervision of Dr. Elisabeth Oswald and Dr. Martijn Stam, as part of the ECRYPT-NET project.

I come from a small village in the countryside of Milan (Italy) but I also lived in other cities of Italy: I spent three years in Venice where I attended the “Francesco Morosini” Military Naval School, and four years in Trento where I did both my B.Sc. and M.Sc. in mathematics at the University of Trento. In particular, my M.Sc. was focused on applications in cryptography and error-correcting codes and since then I have developed a passion for the subject! However, the experience that persuaded me to do a PhD was an internship I did in STMicroelectronics under the supervision of Ing. Guido Bertoni. There, I had a blurry flavour of what doing research may look like...and I liked it!

My work here can be summarised by the sentence “leakage-resilient lattice-based cryptography”. Indeed the two main aspects are side-channel analysis and lattice-based cryptography, making the project extremely interesting for me: I love to work in an interdisciplinary environment and the fact that many subjects can potentially influence my research really stimulates me. In general, working in such an international and multi-cultural environment is what I have ever wanted from a job: I really look forward to share works and ideas to create something great for the world of tomorrow and when I was told the job involved travels, my answer was “I wouldn't even consider it otherwise”.

I am sure that next three years will be a great experience from both a personal and professional point of view so...let's do it! I look forward to see all other fellows in Tenerife.

Marco

A simple "hallo" from Erik

Continuing with the theme of introducing ourselves, my name is Erik Boss. I am one of the ESRs from Ruhr-Universität Bochum. I grew up in a fairly small town called Duiven located in the east of the Netherlands. I completed my Bachelor's and Master's degrees at the Radboud University Nijmegen. The latter of which specializing in computer security.

Only deciding right at the end of my studies to pursue a PhD, I applied for one of the ESR positions at the RUB and moved to Germany three months later. Which, so far, has been an interesting experience.

Within the context of ECRYPT-NET, I will be combining my expertise with software-related security with the experience located at the RUB in embedded security. What I will be looking at primarily is the automatic verification of hardware specifications in order to detect, prevent and/or measure side-channel leakages. This allows me combine many areas of computer security as well as some ideas from computer science in general.

Overall, I am grateful for the opportunity provided by this project to do something which is fun and fulfilling and maybe even useful to the world at large. Already I have met some great people within the context of ECRYPT-NET and I am looking forward to seeing everyone again in Tenerife.

"Здраво" from Dušan

Hello, my name is Dušan Božilov. I come from a village in central Serbia, Podunavci. After I finished high school in town of Kraljevo I started my bachelor studies at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade. I finished both my bachelor and master studies on the Department of Electronics.

As part of the ECRYPT-NET project, my focus will mainly be on lightweight symmetric key cryptography efficiently implementable in hardware. Especially exploring new ways to protect against combined power attacks, as these attacks are Achilles heel for most of the existing countermeasures today. My research will include new countermeasures and design approaches such as threshold implementations and leakage resilient crypto. Another important task will be making the design low power and low energy, so it can be used on passive or battery powered devices with limited computational strength. 

Like Simon, I'll be part of the NXP team in Leuven. NXP is major semiconductor manufacturer and has a lot of experience in industry when it comes to low power symmetric key crypto. For someone whose PhD topic is in this particular area, it is a very good company to be in. And from what I've seen so far, atmosphere here is nothing short of great. Also, I'll be spending plenty of time at COSIC, KU Leuven, learning from and working with some of the most prominent researchers in the crypto world. My supervisor at NXP is Miroslav Knežević, and my supervisor at COSIC is Bart Preneel.

In the end, I consider myself very lucky to have opportunity to work with people from NXP, COSIC, and of course, ECRYPT-NET fellows. There is no doubt that the next couple of years will be quite thrilling and exciting, both professionally and personally. I'm looking forward to our next meeting in Tenerife in January!

"Olá" from Gustavo

Hello! I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Gustavo Souza Banegas and I'm one of the two ECRYPT-NET participants from Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. I'm from Florianópolis, Brazil, and I've just moved to Eindhoven, Netherlands. During the time in Brazil, I have completed my undergraduate and master's degree in Computer Science at Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Laboratory of Computer Security. The focus of my work in Brazil was in computer security and cryptography.

It is single opportunity for me to work in the ECRYPT-NET. My contribution for the project will be in the post-quantum area. From the pqcrypto.org, we can have an explanation of the importance about post-quantum cryptography: "Imagine that it's fifteen years from now. Somebody announces that he's built a large quantum computer. RSA is dead. DSA is dead. Elliptic curves, hyperelliptic curves, class groups, whatever, dead, dead, dead." (Bernstein, 2009)

In the next three years, I hope to contribute for the fascinating area of post-quantum cryptography  by improving it. In order to accomplish, I will be under the supervision of Tanja Lange and Daniel Bernstein.

The summer school in Sardinia was amazing and it was a nice moment to meet with people involved in ECRYPT-NET. I am very happy to work with you guys. See you in Tenerife!

"Servus" from Ralph

Hello, my name is Ralph and I am one of the two Early Stage Researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL). I come from Graz, Austria, where I have successfully completed my undergraduate and master's degree, both in Computer Science, at Graz University of Technology. During my studies, I did my master thesis at the Technical University of Denmark for 6 months. After finishing my studies, I worked for Austria Microsystems and NXP Austria for a few months. Recently, I have moved to the UK and live now in Staines, near the university. I study now in the Information Security Group (ISG) at Royal Holloway among several other Ph.D. students.

Within ECRYPT-NET I am going to work on the design and analysis of efficient and lightweight authenticated encryption schemes. Therefore, I am going to investigate different design principles for Authenticated Encryption (AE) schemes, which can provide both confidentiality and authenticity of data in a secure and efficient way. Particular focus will be on low cost designs. My research will be supervised by Prof. Carlos Cid.

I am really excited to be part of ECRYPT-NET and I am looking forward to have the best 3 years of my live with you guys. See you soon in Tenerife!

Click here for a count down to our next ECRYPT-NET meeting in Tenerife.

Mag ik me even voorstellen - Simon de cryptograaf

Hello everybody!

My name is Simon, I have studied computer science with a major in cryptography at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and I am now one of the 15 early stage researchers in ECRYPT-NET.

I am with NXP in Leuven and I am already enjoying the great environment. I have the opportunity to work with academic researchers at KU Leuven in COSIC and industry researchers at the Innovation Center Crypto & Security at NXP. And of course my fellow early stage researchers whom I just met at the amazing summer school on Sardinia. I am happy and proud to join you guys!

Within ECRYPT-NET I will be working on the design of lightweight privacy preserving authentication. I think protecting people's privacy is one of the most difficult and important challenges we are currently facing. Because of the interest in big data this problem will only grow in the near future and I am happy to work on this topic. The lightweight part is important to make sure cryptographic designs have the necessary impact on our world. After all, what good is the most secure new smart card if it is so expensive or slow that nobody will ever buy and use it?

I think cryptography combines the beauty of abstract mathematics with the bad-ass charm of hacking and here is my favorite quote about it:

"The magic of cryptography is such that things that are clearly impossible are often straightforward and vice-versa."

(from a talk by Ian Goldberg)

"Ciao" from Michele

Hello, my name is Michele and I am one of the two PhD students at École normale supérieure (ENS-PARIS) taking part in the ECRYPT-NET project. I come from Parma, in Italy, where I completed my undergraduate and master's degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Parma. Now I am very excited about living in Paris and taking part in such an interesting project! In particular I am very happy to work under the supervision of Michel Abdalla and Hoeteck Wee and I consider myself fortunate to have been accepted to an excellent institution such as the ENS.

In the next three years I will work on lattice-based cryptography, which is an extremely interesting, fast moving and promising area. My long-term goal is to become a researcher and hopefully a professor. So, basically, now I would like to start with finding answers to open problems, and then I hope I will be able to find my own questions.

I speak Italian (mother tongue) and English, even though now I am trying to learn a bit of French as well. My main interests are technology in general, coding (I am not an expert but I like it), traveling, watching TV series, movies and listening to music.

I am really looking forward to meeting you and working together with the partners of this project!

Hello from Eduardo

Hello! This is just a short introduction after the welcome post (thank you!) and my thoughts on the School on Design and Security of Cryptographic Algorithms and Devices. My name is Eduardo and I am an Early Stage Researcher for the ECRYPT-NET project at the University of Bristol. I moved to the United Kingdom a few weeks ago from France, where I completed a Master in Algebra Applied to Cryptography and Symbolic Computation at the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. Before that, I did studies Mathematics at the Universidad de Valladolid (Spain), during which I was also an Erasmus student at the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines for a year.

My contribution to the ECRYPT-NET is that of investigating how Multi-Party Computation (MPC) protocols can enable specific applications domains where privacy matters, such as cloud computing. In particular we will examine practical optimization techniques, building upon recent work on practical instantiations of MPC protocols developed in Bristol, Aarhus, Darmstadt, Bar-Ilan, and numerous US Universities.

As I said before, I am very excited about this opportunity, and I hope we will be able to make a significant contribution. Time will tell!

Hello from Marie-Sarah

Hello! I'd like to introduce myself. I'm one of the two ECRYPT-NET participants at Royal Holloway, University of London. I just moved to the UK from Canada, where I did my undergraduate and master's degrees in mathematics at the University of Waterloo. I think it's fantastic that the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions support researchers of any nationality!

During the next three years, I hope to apply my experience in tinkering with security reductions to developing schemes for securely outsourcing computation that are both practical and have strong security reductions.

French is my mother tongue and I like learning bits of other languages while travelling. So, here is a challenge for my fellow ECRYPT-NET researchers: learn a few phrases in the local language at each of our meetings during the next three years. To start, here are a few words of Campidanese Sardinian (spoken in southern Sardinia) and Italian.

I'm looking forward to meeting all of you!

Marie-Sarah

English	Sardinian	Italian
Hello	Bonas dies	Buon giorno
Good night	Bòna nòtti	Buona notte
Goodbye	A si bìri	Arrivederci
Yes	Éi	Sì
No	Nòne	No
Please	Pro praghere	Per favore
Thank you	Gratzias	Grazie
Cheers!	Salute!	Salute!
What is your name?	Ite ti nas?	Come ti chiami?
My name is...	Mi naro...	Mi chiamo...
Where are you from?	De aùndi bènis?	Da dove vieni?
I am from...	Eu so de...	Io vengo da...
Do you speak English?	A faeddas s'ingresu?	Parla inglese?
Where is (the bathroom)?	Aùndi est (su bagnu)?	Dov'è (il bagno)?
Let's go!	Ayò!	Andiamo!
1 one	unu	uno
2 two	duos	due
3 three	tre	tre
4 four	battor	quattro
5 five	chimbe	cinque
6 six	ses	sei
7 seven	sete	sette
8 eight	oto	otto
9 nine	nove	nove
10 ten	deghe	dieci

To learn more:

http://www.nativlang.com/sardinian-language/sardinian-basic-phrases.php
http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/sardinian.php
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?127539-Learning-a-bit-of-Sardinian
http://www.ditzionariu.org/home.asp

Welcome to Eduardo

The ECRYPT.NET project would like to welcome Eduardo Soria Vazquez to the University of Bristol, where he is starting a PhD working on Multi-Party Computation. 

Eduardo joins a strong and vibrant team at Bristol which has been making ground breaking contributions to the practical implementation of Multi-Party Computation technologies over the last few years. As part of Eduardo's PhD he will be engaging in research with our partner organizations, and visiting a number of companies and institutes associated with the ECRYPT project.

Welcome to ECRYPT-CSA

ECRYPT-CSA is a Coordination and Support Action sponsored by the European Union's H2020 programme.  The project consists of four academic and one industrial partner.

The goal of this CSA is to strengthen European excellence in the area of cryptology and to build on the Network of Excellence ECRYPT and ECRYPT II to achieve a durable integration and structuring of the European cryptography community, involving academia, industry, law enforcement and defence agencies. The project has the following concrete objectives:

• Provide technology watch, joint research agendas and foresight studies for 15 specific cryptographic technologies and topics;
• Identify technology gaps, market and implementation opportunities for five key application domains;
• Provide technical expertise to the cybersecurity and privacy communities through white papers, standardisation overviews and a study on the evaluation of implementations;
• Contribute on the evaluation and verification of cryptographic protocols and algorithms;
• Contribute to the ongoing open cryptographic competitions (CAESAR for authenticated encryption and password hashing) with security and implementation benchmarking, study methodologies for benchmarking and plan future open competitions;
• Contribute to the development of European standards, including for the public sector;
• Solve training needs and skill shortage of academia and industry by making an inventory of existing training programs and organizing each year an intensive course in an area of strategic importance; in addition a training will be organized on the societal elements of cryptography and on cryptography and innovation;
• Dissemination and outreach to broad range of communities and strengthening the link with institutional stakeholders such as the European Commission.

Welcome to ECRYPT-NET

ECRYPT-NET is a research network of six universities and two companies, as well as 7 associated companies, that intends to develop advanced cryptographic techniques for the Internet of Things and the Cloud and to create efficient and secure implementations of those techniques on a broad range of platforms. 

ECRYPT-NET is funded by a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie ITN (Integrated Training Network) grant. The network will educate a group of 15 PhD students with a set of interdisciplinary skills in the areas of mathematics, computer science and electrical engineering. The training will be provided in an international context,that includes Summer Schools, workshops, internships, and complementary skills. 

The 15 PhD students recruited to work on the programme are expected to spend at least six months abroad in a network partner or in one of the 7 associated companies. We are looking for highly motivated candidates to fill these positions, with a strong academic track record, ideally with some background on cryptology and with proven research abilities.